The History of Rabies

An interview with Bill Wasik and his wife, Monica Murphy, about their book, Rabid:A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus, gives us this tidbit of information:

Can you explain what happens to a person when they become infected with rabies?
MM: Usually, of course, this happens through a bite wound. The virus in the animal's saliva enters through the wound and infects the nerve cells there. Then it slowly climbs its way up the nervous system toward the brain. If you're bitten on the face, it might reach the brain in a matter of days, but usually this journey will take weeks, months, or even upwards of a year. If you get vaccinated at any point before the virus arrives at the brain, you can clear it without any danger. But once it infects the brain, you have rabies, and it's nearly 100-percent fatal.
BW: After that things get grisly. The first symptom is actually sort of interesting: Supposedly you get this tingling sensation at the site of the wound. Like, you didn't have it before, all that time that rabies was crawling up to the brain. Usually the wound has even healed at this point. But once your brain is infected, you'll often start to feel something odd at the site: a tingling, an itch, a stabbing pain. It sounds almost supernatural, but apparently it's true.
MM: Soon, it manifests as a flu-like illness—a sort of general malaise. It gets worse from there. You start to become disoriented and deranged.
BW: Another classic symptom is a difficulty in swallowing, which winds up manifesting as a visceral revulsion to water or other drinks—hence the term "hydrophobia," which used to be the medical term for human rabies. Occasionally, patients also experience hypersexual behavior, with involuntary orgasms. (I read about one case report in Latin that said, "Semen at animam simul efflavit," i.e., "His seed and his life were lost simultaneously.")
MM: Over a short period of time, you swing back and forth between periods of hysterical aggression, on the one hand, and terrible lucidity on the other. So you're able to contemplate just how bad your situation is.
BW: And then it kills you.
MM: Yeah. Rabies ultimately shuts down the brainstem, at which point you either suffocate or your heart stops.

My mother got bit by a neighbor's dog, and when she went to the hospital, they wanted to check out the dog.  She went over to the neighbor's house and told him the authorities wanted to see the dog, and he said it was too late, he'd shot it and burned the body.  She decided to chance it and not take the rabies shots.  It worked out for her, but the authors advise against such a gamble.