Rabies Resurgent: ‘The Dog Plague’, 1864–1879

Abstract

Between the early 1860s to the late 1870s two broad changes occurred in public, veterinary and medical views of rabies and hydrophobia. The perceived threat of rabies moved into the home; the ‘Dog Days’ of summer and canine madness affecting whole towns was gradually replaced in the public consciousness with the idea that there was a constant danger from pet dogs as well as strays on the street. Second, the two diseases were increasingly considered separately: rabies as an animal disease that might eventually be eradicated, and hydrophobia as a uniquely untreatable human condition with an intriguing psychological dimension. Indeed, hydrophobia was the only ‘phobia’ until the labelling of the new phobias, like claustrophobia and agoraphobia, in the 1870s. For most of the 1860s, veterinary and medical opinion on the diseases remained fragmented, with no group of professionals codifying and validating knowledge systematically. However, from the mid-1870s a network of veterinarians and doctors was formed around the campaigning of George Fleming, the editor of the Veterinary Journal, who became the national authority on rabies.¹ By 1880, this network had strong links with the government’s veterinary officials, with doctors promoting new approaches to controlling infectious contagious diseases, and with proponents of the new laboratory medicine.