Curing the Fear of Werewolves
This is a cure that could kill, on more than one level. That it is careless, sensational, and downright dumb surprises me not at all, but then again... people will fall for it. People have fallen for it. it's not medicine, but culturally we've built up a scorn for medicine and pharmaceuticals, and this is the result...
A homeopathic cure for the fear of werewolves, defiant behavior, and spoiled-brat syndrome (not a Real Thing) using the, um, magic of rabies. I sh*% you not, dear readers.
This is a 4-year-old boy who is suffering from an inability to fall asleep at night, a fear of the dark, of wolves, werewolves, ghosts and zombies and who frequently hides under tables and growls at people. He is overly excitable and has a tendency to defiance. He was normal as a baby, not affected by sleep or temper problems.
There is a history of a dog bit which drew blood. I decided to give a homeopathic remedy made from rabies.
The dog that bit him may have recently been vaccinated with the rabies vaccine or the dog bite in and of itself may have affected the boy with the rabies miasm. Either is possible and the phenomenon is welll-known [sic] in homeopathy.
A bite from an animal, with or without rabies vaccination has the potential to imprint an altered state in the person who was bitten, in some ways similar to a rabies infection. This can include over-excitability, difficulties sleeping, aggression and various fears, especially of dogs or wolves. This child presented a perfect picture of this type of rabies state. Most homeopaths would have easily recognized the remedy required in this case.
Plan: Lyssinum 200CH, 2 pellets. (Please note, this is a homeopathic remedy, prepared by a licensed homeopathic pharmacy in the UK, Helios Homeopathy.) There's much, much more at this link, which dives into naturopathy, homeopathy, and the dangers inherent in magical medicine. Because that's not science. That's sheer magical thinking, or maybe wishful thinking, if you prefer. The power of the human mind to create placebo effects is amazing, but there is only so far that will take you, and curing rabies, should you manage to get a live virus in that homeopathic remedy, is not one of those places. Science is how we got the actual vaccine against rabies. Because rabies is a nasty, nasty disease, and there is no cure. Why you would even risk giving a child rabies? To get the child to act the way you wanted? Tan his hide and let him be afraid of werewolves! The only good thing about this is that homeopathy is just water, having been diluted from the original substance to a point that there is probably no virus left in it. Still, I wouldn't risk that on my child, much less someone else's.
Even leaving the remedy aside, the whole premise of a dog biting the child and somehow passing on some cockamamie conceptual rabies - like the boy was possessed by the Rabies Demon. Which, given what I know of the effects of rabies on a human, probably fits how people saw rabies before the Germ Theory was common knowledge. Rabies causes inflammation of the brain, which leads to delirium, hallucinations, insanity... It's a bad show.
Since the myths surrounding werewolves may in part stem from humans succumbing to the disease after being bitten by a rabid dog or wolf, using rabies to cure a fear of werewolves is... a myth itself, and potentially a fatal one.