Things that make me mad

When I lost on Jeopardy, I was angry, but I wasn't mad. (Okay, fine. I wasn't angry, either. But I'm trying to make a charming connection to my return to the First Aid badge, so bear with me here.)

Anyway. I wasn't mad because I have never been bitten by a mad dog. Out of concern for the safety of one and all, though, the Handbook's First Aid badge requires understanding how to treat for just such a thing. And so, off we go!

Now, this component of the badge comes as something of a surprise to me. See, I knew that Louis Pasteur had developed a rabies vaccine in the 1880s, and so I saw treating a mad dog bite as kind of an irrelevant thing. Then again, I just wasn't thinking hard enough -- as anyone who's ever read To Kill a Mockingbird knows, rabid dogs were plenty scary in the 1930s.

The Handbook deals with mad dogs in one way and one way only: killing them. This makes any actual mad dog-related demonstration difficult, since I am not a horrible human being, and since most US rabies cases nowadays are found in wild animals. I considered, briefly, hoping Charlie the cat would bite at me (look at those choppers! ps, he posed for this while purring, because I was also holding him up to gaze at pigeons outside the window), but even that seemed ineffective. But alas, he wasn't feeling too bitey. So instead, I was unable to engage in the Handbook's primary anti-rabid-dog methods, which consist of waggling a handkerchief at a charging dog, matador-style, in order to distract him, then kicking him in the chin. (Alternate methods include wrapping a coat around your arm, presenting that arm to be bit, then either choking the dog with your remaining arm or clubbing him over the head. Please don't be angry with me for this. I am not urging you to do this to your pet, or to your neighbor's pet, or to any actual dogs. Ever. Really.)

Once you've subdued the mad dog, of course, there's still the first aid component: holy crap, you've been bitten by a mad dog! You have rabies! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!

Never fear. Well, fear in 1911. But don't fear now. In the pre-rabies treatment days, you had a few options. Some included the 18th-century method of swigging a drink of liverwort, pepper, and cold milk followed by an icy bath, or the even older method of drying the dog's heart and eating it. Don't do this. Please don't. It will be a terrible idea.

(If you have gotten here via things like "eat a dog's heart," leave, you sick, sick individual.)

In real life, if you get bitten, all you really need to do is get to some soap and water, then get yourself to the doctor immmmmmmmediately. (If you can, by the way, let animal control know who bit you so they can quarantine the critter for a couple weeks.) Thorough washing will minimize viral transmission, so give yourself a solid 5 minutes with plenty of soap. (Since rabies is viral rather than bacterial, antibacterial soap will do nothing for you -- this is a huge pet peeve of mine.) Regardless, rush to the doctor for some post-exposure prophylaxis, a series of shots over the course of 6 weeks or so. It's supereffective, and since its introduction rabies deaths in the US have dropped to only a couple per year. Go team!