Louis Pasteur and Rabies

Louis Pasteur used oxygen to weaken the infection, and then he gave other animals a series of immunizations, each a little stronger than the previous one. Always, Louis Pasteur anesthetized the animals first so they felt no pain. Louis Pasteur had been fearless in his work - handling the rabid animals himself and even once using a tube to suck the saliva out of the jaws of a rabid bulldog that was being restrained by his assistants. Someday he hoped to perfect his immunization method for use on humans but first he had asked a commission to evaluate his experiments. That commission had not even had time to reach its conclusions, and here before him was Joseph Meister, his eyes wide with fear, his small body quivering with pain.  Finally Pasteur made up his mind - without treatment, the boy would surely die. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain.

How Louis Pasteur cured rabies

Louis Pasteur began treating Joseph with the exact method he had used on his animals in the laboratory. Louis Pasteur would give him twelve injections, each one a little stronger than the last. It was a process that left Pasteur badly shaken. Louis Pasteur had to guess at the dosage and was frightened about possible after-effects. After each dose of the vaccine was injected into the boy's side, Louis Pasteur had nightmares in which the boy was suffocating, and it was he who was killing him. Louis Pasteur became so overwrought, he himself got ill, and the injections had to be given by an assistant. There was a long incubation period after the immunizations, so Pasteur removed himself to the country, where he could recuperate and wait out the results. Louis Pasteur lived in dread of the fearful message that Joseph had died. But the message, when it arrived, was not dreadful; it was jubilant! Joseph had survived. And he was well and healthy - the first human being to be successfully vaccinated against rabies.

Now Louis Pasteur was inundated with patients. Because rabies often didn't hit until weeks after the person had been infected, victims of dog bites flocked to his laboratory from all over the world, seeking his help. America raised funds to send orphans and charity cases to him. Nineteen Russians who had been bitten by rabid wolves showed up at his door. People came from England, Hungary, Spain and Holland. Many people knew only one word of French: "Pasteur." He helped them all, and he saved almost every one of them.

A half century later, in the year 1940, Joseph Meister was made the official gatekeeper at the Louis Pasteur Institute. Joseph, who was then 64 years old, was proud of his chance to humbly serve the man who had once saved his life, and the lives of so many others. Then, when the Germans occupied France, a Nazi official commanded Joseph to open Pasteur's burial crypt. No one knows what the Germans were looking for or what they hoped to achieve by opening the crypt. But rather than obey their command and violate the memory of the man he so respected, Joseph Meister committed suicide.

Louis Pasteur inspired the dedication, gratitude, and love of millions of people. Scientists will forever be grateful for his pioneering work in chemistry that laid the foundation of modern microbiology. The public will be forever grateful that he launched a new era in immunizations that protected the health and saved the lives of millions.