*LIGHT STEVEN KING - CUJO SPOILER!!!* I'm just over halfway through Steven King's Cujo (good read, btw). At one point a woman is stuck in a car trying to get a window closed so a rabid saint bernard can't get at her and her young child. She manages to get the window closed, but the dog dribbles in on her. They're in a fairly inhabited area, and it doesn't look like anyone's coming soon (she thinks the postman will come, but surely he'll be killed?) I was well sucked into the story, and I thought what if she ate the drool, became rabid and fought off the dog? I know saint bernards are massive, but she'd be desperate to save her child, and that could be her only hope. Would she become rabid, and would it work? It's a pretty awesome thought, and I'd like to use it in some novel. *HEAVY DARREN SHAN - WOLF ISLAND SPOILER!!!* Reminds me of Wolf Island where Darren finally gives into his wolfen genes in order to save himself and his friends from a pack of... wolves.
If this is based on any sort of facts then such a scenario is pretty much impossible. Firstly you don't contract the rabies virus by drinking saliva. You need to be bitten so that the virus comes into contact with your nerves. And secondly you wouldn't suddenly become rabid. It takes time for the virus to travel to your brain, and the symptoms are more along the lines of confusion, hydrophobia and paralysis, not so much super strength. You'll need to make up a fictitious virus for that I'm afraid.
Joker has it correct. Contracting rabies does not instantly give you raging berserker powers. With animals it may seem that way, but it is because they are in constant pain and possibly delusional. All that pain makes them prone to violence. Now if you were to create your own genetically engineered rabies....
