Rabies In Marquez's Of Love And Other Demons

The article on the fantasy within the novella reveals the debate of the governess’s mental state during her time with the children. The debacle that can be depicted within the work can be surrounded through the idea that her fantasies represent the point in which she is at her most anxious. When her anxiety reaches a certain peak, the ghost then appears. This can especially be seen just before the first sighting, when she says, “I was giving pleasure-if he ever thought of it! - to the person to whose pressure I had yielded” (38). The pressure she is experiencing allows her mental state to bring out the fantasy aspect of the apparition. Using Zacharias’s article, the audience can see the fantasy is a mechanism that is used by the governess and

Real life is described in the book as “that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic” (Letter 1). Reality can be used by the demons to distract their “patient” with material or tangible goods. So with this approach, when the patient begins to think about God or religion, then

Before the 1400s psychological issues, mental health problems, were viewed as a connection with the devil. The public viewed people with health problems as being possessed by a demon (Dualdiagnosis). Mental health wasn’t known in this time period, so people acting strange from the general public stood out. These people were treated in a few different ways: exorcism, murder, imprisonment, and trephining skulls; trephined skull is when a small hole is made in the skull to release spirits. (Lumen Learning). Everyone of these ways are very horrendous, but still very true to how mental ill people were treated. As a result, all of the treatments involved the mentally ill person dying or suffering. Mental ill people wasn’t understood at all in this

Edgar Allen Poe was a mysterious writer that was famous in the early 1800’s for his horror stories and mystery writings and poems. He died on October 7th, 1849, but his death cause is unknown and a very controversial topic. Two of the main guesses as to what Poe’s cause of death was is alcoholism and rabies. I believe that Poe’s death was caused by rabies because Poe’s symptoms were of rabies when he died, two doctors, Dr. Pollin and Dr. Benedetto, tried disproving his theory but could only do it with false information, and another well known doctor, Dr. Benitez backs up his theory that Poe died of rabies with scientific support that can’t be refuted.

Their inability to create a cure stimulated the end of believe in powerful church. The religious controversy is concentrated on the belief of God’s punishment and the loss of faith in salvation. Slack’s introduces his point of view about that situation by saying “patient submission of the God’s will was therefore the only rational attitude in the face of sickness” (Slack, 38). Overwhelmed by fear, people turned to the church and religion. (Church officials urged those infected with plague to pray frequently to their favorite saints and ask repentance. )

As you could see the author Esquivel adds a lot of magical realism to make it more intrigued and an open minded setting. She furthermore keeps adding on and still continue to guide us through the story. Another example, are the feelings of Gertrudis in which she

During Ancient times, cure and prevention of illness and disease were not very well developed – people would blame their ill health on Gods, witches, demons or other supernatural causes. They had many theories, such as God punishing them for their sins.

It was believed that patients who suffered symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behaviour, and other symptoms that cause social or occupational dysfunction; characterised as Schizophrenia in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), were said to be suffering from demonic possession, mental retardation, or from exposure to poisonous materials. During this time there was no social support systems such as community based treatment like we have today. In addition, treatments that where available where barbaric and ineffective in helping the

Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death, he faced many bizarre symptoms. However, those symptoms can be explained when looking at the symptoms of rabies. One of the many symptoms you can face when you have rabies is a fever. It has been reported that “with Elmira Shelton’s recollection that on leaving Richmond Poe had a fever”(186). Elmira Shelton was engaged to Poe before his death. Besides a fever, Edgar Allan Poe faced many other symptoms before death. Dr. John J. Moran says that on his account, Poe faced “profuse perspiration, trembling, and hallucinations” (186). Once again, these are other symptoms of rabies, therefore, Poe’s death is very likely to be caused by rabies.

The Devil could still be the cause because many believe that he works through nature, like God, and thus causing the disease and symptoms of possession.

Many people like Thomas Aquinas had a huge risk of losing their practice for thinking mental illness came from insanity and other psychological theories other than demonic association (Thompson 9-10). The idea of witchcraft continued until the 1700’s. The word lunatic became the new term for describing those who were mentally ill. Thousands of people were sent to asylums and treated like wild animals by intimidation, physical abuse, bloodletting, straightjackets, and many other punishments that were similar to the treatments generally reserved for criminal practices (Thompson 11). There were still no specific identifications for the different mental issues in people.

Many of us now attempt to view the world in an empirical way. However, according to Goodbeer, many of the people that dismiss the superstitious beliefs of the witch trials fail to realize the “leaps of faith” made by modern scientist. This hypocrisy is seen when one looks at the differences in how our worlds operate. In particular when we deal with diseases, back in the seventeenth century they were incapable of diagnosing even the most of common ailments. The way that seventeenth century New Englanders had of dealing and explaining these uncertainties that we no longer face was by explaining it through religion and supernatural phenomenon. Furthermore, they did not have the ability to counteract environmental occurrences that could lead to harm such as darkness and cold, which we now have. Having understood why and how the seventeenth century New Engalnders began to rely on the supernatural to explain certain occurrences in their world we can begin to understand the cultural context of the time (Godbeer,

1b. These scripts that the demoniacs performed, whether their symptoms were true, psychosomatic, or faked, were present in the culture of the time. Illness or purely faking as theories do not take into account the religion and culture of the European people of the modern era.

Rabies had been known about since 2000 B.C. but technology was obviously not advanced enough to try and do anything about the spread of the virus. In the year 1885, France and Belgium had become plagued with more and more cases of the rabies that the fear had soon began to become a very reasonable fear for people to have. This gave Louis Pasteur ample reason to research more about the virus.

Early-on specifically during the Middle Ages, mental illness was believed by many as demonic possession and religious’ punishment. Some trailblazers sought to cure mentally ill individuals by conducting non- religious techniques, and instead incorporating a change in environment, or even administering certain substances/medications that where heavily used during that time; that were thought of as medical treatment. The