[Behaviour of rabid animals studied at the Centre National d'Etudes sur la Rage]

The diagnosis department of the Centre National d'Etudes sur la Rage receives, with the anatomical samples, information on the behaviour of the animal suspected of having rabies, and justification for the sacrifice of the animal. Confronted with the observations of foxes in captivity, inoculated for experimental needs, these documents confirm that there are several varieties of rabies found in different species which were studied. One type of rabies, characterized by an attitude of prostration from the beginning to the end of the illness, a type of rabies without agressivity, with abnormal activity, absence of fight instinct, abnormal walking and behaviour, paralysis, and a form of 'furious rabies' during which the animal can not only kill or seriously injure the other animals that he comes into contact with, but inflicts on himself serious injuries, in the fox and mustelids, through biting, and in herbivores through extremely violent head-butting.