INTRODUCTION Contributed by Yolande Rotivel Pasteur Institute, Paris Rabies is a very old disease, perhaps as old as humankind. The word rabies has its origin in Sanskrit, 3000 years BBC: "rabhas" means "to do violence". The Greek word for rabies, "lyssa" derives from the root "lud" which means "violent". Thus, the family of viruses to which rabies belongs is lyssa. The first description of the disease dates from the 23rd. century BC in the Eshuma Code of Babylon. Antiquity, did know rabies as ...