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Another Look at Rabies in the Eighteenth Century

Thomas Rowlandson’s “A mad dog in a Coffee House”, 1800

A follow-up to my recent post about obituary notices.  Rabies is possibly one of the earliest ailments known to man, and it seems to have ebbed and flowed across the face of the Earth for thousands of years. In particular there are records showing how it spread across Europe in the eighteenth century. There was a major outbreak in England in 1734-5 and a much more serious one in 1752, when orders were made for dogs to be shot on sight in the St James area of London.

1759 saw a vicious outbreak in London which lasted three years and resulted in all dogs being confined indoors for a while, on sufferance of being shot. A two shilling reward for killing each dog led to barbaric scenes in the street and this was echoed in many European cities including Madrid where, in 1763, 900 dogs were slaughtered in a single day.

The fear persisted and by 1774 rabies was prevalent throughout England and a reward of up to five shillings was available for each dog killed.

Mad-dog Skullcap, per Wikipedia

Various herbal remedies were put forward for curing a person of the bite of a mad dog including Scutellaria lateriflora, also known as  Mad-dog Skullcap (a member of the mint family found in North America). In practice all human cases of rabies were fatal until a vaccine was developed in 1885 by Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux. Their original vaccine was harvested from infected rabbits, from which the virus in the nerve tissue was weakened by allowing it to dry for a week or so.

Mind you, the lack of an effective cure did not prevent eighteenth century apothecaries making   claims about their patent medicines – here, an extract from the Annual Register of 1765:

Shown courtesy of the Wellcome Collection

It is also worth noting the advertisement from Messrs. Hill & Berry:

J. Berry’s advertisement for a rabies cure, shown courtesy of the Wellcome Collection

Back in 1743 a Dutch medic  had suggested boiling an onion with salt and honey. Other remedies involved washing the wound with a concoction made from  grating up ten different sorts of roots and standing them in old beer or vinegar for an unstated period of time. By 1790 it was being suggested that  three egg yolks, fried with three half-egg shells full of ‘tree oil,’  should be taken for a couple of days and thereafter be applied to the wound for a further seven days. The problem of course is that with rabies the disease can take weeks – often months – to manifest itself. So, someone who was bitten might well feel that they had been cured by some magic potion or other, only to die months later, after the dog bite had long since mended and been forgotten about. For such details I am grateful to Marieke Hendriksen at Utrecht University.

It may be worth remembering that in the eighteenth century doctors were able to read about a discussion in March 1720 between Sir Hans Sloane and the surgeon John Burnet. The discussion concerned a story which came direct from Peter the Great,  recounting how a “Man was bitt by a Mad-dog & that he lay with his wife the same night & after three fitts dyed, but that his wife was brought to bed nine weeks afterwards of five puppies”.

Thomas Rowlandson’s view of the medical profession, with the doctor asleep in his chair as his patient lies at death’s door…..

 

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