* <spoiler text="What is the usual pathogenesis of rabies?">Rabies is usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal. The virus enters the CNS by ascending along the peripheral nerves from the wound site. The incubation period varies depending on the distance between the wound and the brain (commonly between 1 and 3 months).</spoiler>

* <spoiler text="What is the usual clinical course of rabies?">The disease usually starts with nonspecific symptoms of malaise, headache, and fever, but the combination of these symptoms with local paresthesias around the site of the animal bite is diagnostic. In advanced cases, the patient exhibits severe CNS excitability progressing to convulsions. Contracture of the pharyngeal musculature when swallowing produces gagging and foaming at the mouth ("hydrophobia"). There is meningismus and, as the disease progresses, flaccid paralysis. Periods of alternating mania and stupor progress to coma and death from respiratory center failure.</spoiler>

{{IPLab 8}}

[[Category: IPLab:Lab 8]]