Rabies and the Modern Vampire

In the western US were tall tales of, quote, phobecats. These animals would come wandering into a cattle herders camp and bite indiscriminately when rabies infected with nearly 100% fatal outcomes for the poor souls bitten. By the 19th century, fear of it had risen to historic levels. But yeah, so there we have it. Some decent evidence for rabies as at least a partial inspiration for the modern vampire. There is a third supernatural creature linked to rabies that you may have noticed I've conspicuously left out. The zombie. We are going to take a special episode to cover this topic in much more detail at another time.