September 30th, 2021 –
National Public Radio reports an announcement from the Illinois Department of Health that an Illinois man has died of Rabies. The Department stated that the man woke up with a bat on his neck in August but refused precautionary treatment to avoid the possibility of developing the incredibly painful, fatal disease.
Hardly impressive in numeric terms when held to the massive numbers of needless deaths currently being seen as a result of similar bad decisions of the part of vaccine denialists, the man’s death does seem to render deaths caused by predictable shortages of medical supplies for treating respiratory failure pretty standard.
A painful and often violent death, rabies inarguably contrasts impressively with huge swathes of quiet suffocation accompanied only by the sounds of air and blood being mechanically circulated. The rarity of his diagnosis, (both in the state of Illinois and the 21st Century) carries with it an unspoken assumption that he chose to expose himself to a protracted and entirely optional death unaided by claims that medical interventions were “too new,” that the virus was “a hoax,” or that media personalities dressed for a cocktail party on the Atlantic Seaboard (for some reason) were telling “the real truth.”
With symptoms that include (but are not limited to) nausea, violent spasms, unconsolable agitation, and fear of water, the last human case of Rabies in Illinois was reported in 1954. By the time the end-stage symptoms of disorientation, sporadic partial paralysis, and inflammation of the brain and meningeal tissues appear, death is all but a certainty and often comes as a welcome end to a gruesome illness. Often compared to fictional viruses that transform their victims into zombies or mindless automatons of violent disease transmission, Rabies was also the title of Skinny Puppy’s Fifth studio album released in 1989, noteworthy for featuring their unsettling and genre-defining singleWorlock.
The Field Notes Report thanks National Public Radio for it’s coverage of Illinois Public Health news, which will hopefully focus more on possible improvements to diet and exercise as well as tips for how to cut back on smoking and excess drinking sometime in the near future.