Rabies

Hattwick, Weis, Stechschulte, Baer and Gregg, Annals of Internal Medicine (1972),¹¹³⁸ give an extensive and detailed report on their successful treatment of a six-year-old boy with clinical rabies, with complete recovery. The authors comment that this is extremely rare, and possibly the first Documented case of recovery from rabies in humans. Many conventional and other measures were used to offset this Desperate condition. Special attention was given to the prevention of hypoxia, cardiac arrhythmias and seizures. Approximately forty days after the infection occurred and while  the boy had been in a comatose condition for several days, PHT was administered, 150 mg daily. Four days after recovery started and progressed steadily to complete recovery.  The role, if any, that PHT played in this recovery is not known. However, since no remedy or clinical rabies is known, this case is of interest. It is well established that PHT is effective against seizures and cardiac arrhythmias, and it is also reported to have anti-anoxic effects. Of possible relevance is the evidence that PHT has antitoxic effects against a wide variety of substances.  See also Pollen, reporting the use of PHT in the successful treatment in a case of cat-scratch encephalitis.

1138. Hattwick, M. A. W., Weis, T. T., Stechschulte, C. J., Baer, G. M., and Gregg, M. B., Recovery from rabies: a case report, Ann. Intern. Med., 76: 931-942, 1972.

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