I feel like there’s not much hygiene difference between a human bite and a rat. They’re probably both equally bad
Preface: I am not a doctor, this is just my understanding. Human bites are, on the whole, much worse. You have to consider that the human mouth is full of bacteria that the human immune system hasn’t already dealt with, so human bites can infect really bad.
Not that rats don’t have awful things in their mouths. Get it looked at either way.
Cat bites as well. Cat scratch fever is a real thing, but it’s far easier to contract directly from the source. I would extrapolate to carnivorous animals = bad infection when bit, but somehow dogs don’t have as much bad bacteria in their mouths, should still get a dog bite looked at, even though there’s way less chance of infection due to saliva bacteria.
That’s where the myth that having a dog lick a wound is a good thing. They don’t have as much bad bacteria, so back in the day before antibiotics and Neosporin, having a dog lick the wound would help clean away some of the bad bacteria.
We like to use the narrowest spectrum antibiotics possible to limit side effects and breeding resistance. Also, the really broad spectrum ones are expensive.
