360Pasteur's rabies vaccine saves a boy's life
On 6 July 1885, the French scientist Louis Pasteur began treating nine-year-old Joseph Meister, who had been badly bitten by a rabid dog, with an experimental vaccine. The boy survived, though rabies was almost always fatal. The success made Pasteur world-famous and led to the founding of the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1887.
Louis Pasteur had already shown that many diseases are caused by germs, and had developed vaccines for animal diseases such as chicken cholera and anthrax.
He and his colleagues worked on rabies by weakening the infection in dried spinal cords of infected rabbits. Rabies takes weeks to develop after a bite, which gave time to vaccinate.
On 6 July 1885, the mother of Joseph Meister, a boy from Alsace bitten 14 times, brought him to Pasteur in Paris. Doctors gave him a series of injections over 11 days. He never developed rabies.
Patients soon came from around the world. Donations funded the Pasteur Institute, opened in 1888, which became a leading centre of medical research. Joseph Meister later worked at the institute as a caretaker.
- 1881
- Pasteur's anthrax vaccine trial
- 6 July 1885
- Joseph Meister is treated
- 1888
- The Pasteur Institute opens
Sources: Institut Pasteur · Britannica.