What to Do if a Dog Bites You? Ancestral Wisdom Admired, Ahead of the West by 1000 Years
Nowadays, many families like to keep pets, and they will playfully interact with them when they have free time, which inevitably leads to scratches or bites from cats and dogs. At this time, the first thing many people think of is to inject rabies vaccine. Experts analyzed that modern pet dogs are descendants of wolves domesticated by humans. Besides guarding and hunting, they were also used to alleviate human loneliness.
How modern people should handle this problem is self-evident, as long as it is a qualified conscience vaccine, rabies is no longer considered such a terrifying disease. It eventually became a famous Chinese medical scientist. He also wrote many medical books, and in 'Elbow Behind the Hand', he recorded how to treat after being bitten by a dog.
During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was a man named Ge Hong who had profound medical knowledge, especially focusing on acute diseases. According to records, he also said that if bitten and no symptoms appeared within seven to twenty days, it meant nothing happened. These descriptions of symptoms and incubation periods are consistent with our current research.
Ge Hong first talked about the symptoms of being bitten by a dog in his book, saying that patients could not tolerate any sound stimulation, especially the sound of water, and after hearing the sound of water, they would convulse. That was the question of what to do if bitten by a dog. We all know that dog saliva hides a lot of bacteria, and if it enters the human body through the wound, it is easy to infect bacteria.
However, ancient times did not say anything about injecting vaccines. So, how did ancestors handle being bitten by a dog? Historical records show that during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, an old man who studied alchemy and made potions, named Ge Hong, was particularly prone to encountering mad dogs. But in ancient times, there was no rabies vaccine, nor advanced medical means. If bitten by a mad dog, one could only wait to die in a state of anxiety.
Moreover, when you know the history of modern rabies vaccines, you will also understand Ge Hong's principles of treatment. Modern rabies vaccines originated in Europe, and the person who invented them was a Frenchman named Louis Pasteur. However, this Frenchman reduced the toxins from dog brains and Ge Hong did not process the dog's brain juice.
In fact, Ge Hong's approach was quite advanced at the time, because from the patient's effectiveness, it was useful, and his method was not entirely random when medical science was so underdeveloped. Ancient people could still have such correct recognition, which must be admired for the wisdom of old ancestors.
