VOA标准英语2012--Bizarre Medical Myth Persists in Rural India

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He said getting bitten by a dog leads to the birth of puppies. The victim gets puppies inside his body and becomes like a mad dog. 

So-called "puppy pregnancy¹ syndrome²" has a long history in the locality.

Psychiatrist³ Kumar Kanti Ghosh helped document the phenomenon for an article in the medical journal Lancet in 2003. His interest started when a nine-year-old boy came to his clinic about 10 days after being bitten by a domesticated⁴ dog.

"There was no issue of rabies," Ghosh said. "But he believed that he had developed a pregnancy with a puppy inside his abdomen⁵. His parents said that sometimes he was barking like a dog and was crawling on his four feet.”

Farmer Gopal Singh is one of Singh's patients who was bitten by a dog about seven years ago. He said he went running to the faith healer- who explained that puppies would be born inside his stomach and he would become like a mad dog and die."

Medical doctor Sanjay Samui is frustrated⁶ by the tendency of villagers to cling to such beliefs.

He said they are uneducated village people - they still hold on to such superstitions⁷. He said he tells everyone it is impossible - in no situation can a puppy be born inside a human body.

Doctors said it will probably take years to eradicate⁸ medical myths like puppy pregnancy syndrome among illiterate⁹ population. Because so many villagers distrust medical doctors, they say the media and local governments should help promote an accurate understanding of the body and what ails¹⁰ it.

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