rabies virus
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S: WOAH – https://www.woah.org/fileadmin/Home/eng/Health_standards/tahm/3.01.18_RABIES.pdf (last access: 15 September 2024); NCBI – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8618/ (last access: 15 September 2024).

N: 1. – rabies (n): “extremely fatal infectious disease of dogs, humans, and many other mammals,” 1590s, from Latin rabies “madness, rage, fury,” related to rabere “be mad, rave” (see rage (v.)). The mad-dog disease sense was a secondary meaning of the Latin noun. Known as hydrophobia (q.v.) in humans. Related: Rabietic.

– virus (n): late 14c., “poisonous substance” (a sense now archaic), from Latin virus “poison, sap of plants, slimy liquid, a potent juice,” from Proto-Italic *weis-o-(s-) “poison,” which is probably from a PIE root *ueis-, perhaps originally meaning “to melt away, to flow,” used of foul or malodorous fluids, but with specialization in some languages to “poisonous fluid” (source also of Sanskrit visam “venom, poison,” visah “poisonous;” Avestan vish- “poison;” Latin viscum “sticky substance, birdlime;” Greek ios “poison,” ixos “mistletoe, birdlime;” Old Church Slavonic višnja “cherry;” Old Irish fi “poison;” Welsh gwy “poison”).

The meaning “agent that causes infectious disease” emerged by 1790s gradually out of the earlier use in reference to venereal disease (by 1728); the modern scientific use dates to the 1880s. The computer sense is from 1972.

2. The virus, a rhabdovirus, is often present in the salivary glands of rabid animals and is excreted in the saliva; thus, the bite of the infected animal introduces the virus into a fresh wound. Under favourable conditions, the virus propagates along nerve tissue from the wound to the brain and becomes established in the central nervous system.

3. Microbiology and Parasitology; Viral Disease: rabies virus.

  • Rabies virus is a bullet-shaped, enveloped, single-strand RNA virus classified in the rhabdovirus family and Lyssavirus genus. It has particular neurotropic properties, and unlike many of the other viruses causing acute encephalitis, it appears to require central nervous system (CNS) infection as an essential part of its “life cycle.

S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=rabies+virus (last access: 15 September 2024). 2. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/rabies#ref895295 (last access: 15 September 2024). 3. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=rabies+virus&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 15 September 2024).

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CR: rabies, RNA virus, virus.