rabies

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An acute, infectious, often fatal viral disease of most warm-blooded animals, especially wolves, cats, and dogs, that attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted by the bite of infected animals.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An extremely fatal infectious disease of man and many other animals, with predominant nervous symptoms. In man (where it is called hydrophobia) the period of incubation lasts in a majority of cases from three to six months or more. Cases where it is said to have lasted several years are ill sustained. The outbreak begins with malaise, anorexia, headache, and slight difficulty in swallowing. After one or two days of these prodromal symptoms the stage of tonic spasms begins, most marked at first in the pharyngeal muscles and in the attempt to swallow, especially liquids, but proceeding to involve the respiratory muscles and others of the trunk and those of the extremities. These convulsions are accompanied by extreme anxiety and oppression, and may be elicited by any stimulus, but especially by attempts to drink or by the sound or sight of liquids. They may last from a few minutes to half an hour. The pulse-rate increases, the temperature is more or less raised, and there may be decided delirium. After from one to three days the period of paralysis succeeds, followed shortly by death. The mortality after the development of the malady is nearly 100 per cent. The disease is communicated to man by inoculation from a rabid animal, usually by a dog-bite. The maximum number of inoculations occur in the early spring or winter, the minimum in late summer or fall. The saliva of rabid dogs seems to be somewhat rabiganic two or three days before the animal shows any evident signs of ill-health. Of persons bitten by rabid animals only a fraction develop rabies, estimated at from 16 per cent. for light wounds through the clothing up to 80 per cent. for wounds of exposed parts. The records of Pasteur's laboratories show a reduction to less than 1 per cent. when such persons are treated by his method. See Pasteurism.

Wiktionary

1. n. pathology A viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals and people, characterised by abnormal behaviour such as excitement, aggressiveness, and dementia, followed by paralysis and death.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Same as hydrophobia (b); canine madness.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain