---
title: "Louis Pasteur's Rabies Vaccination"
year: 1885
country: "France"
canonical: "https://recap.at/1885/pasteur-rabies-vaccine"
slug: "pasteur-rabies-vaccine"
recapType: "global_event"
startDate: "1885-01-01"
---

# Louis Pasteur's Rabies Vaccination

> Pasteur's first successful human rabies vaccination demonstrated the principle of immunization and launched modern vaccine development as a science.

On July 6, 1885, Louis Pasteur administered the first successful rabies vaccination to Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by an infected dog two days earlier. The treatment—a series of injections using weakened rabies virus grown in rabbit spinal cord—worked, and Meister survived what had been a uniformly fatal disease. This moment proved that vaccination could prevent disease after exposure, not just before it.

## Summary

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health and much of modern medicine. Pasteur's works are credited with saving millions of lives through the developments of vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern bacteriology and has been honored as the "father of bacteriology" and the "father of microbiology".

## Key facts

- **Patient age**: 9 years old
- **Days between bite and treatment**: 2
- **Number of injections administered**: 14 over 10 days
- **Vaccine medium**: Rabbit spinal cord infected with rabies virus
- **Prior rabies survival rate**: 0% (uniformly fatal)
- **Patient name**: Joseph Meister
- **Location**: Pasteur Institute, Paris
- **Date of first injection**: July 6, 1885

## Timeline

- **1881-05-05** - Pasteur's chicken cholera experiment
  Pasteur demonstrates vaccination principle using attenuated cholera pathogen in chickens, laying theoretical groundwork for rabies vaccine development.
- **1881-07-06** - Anthrax vaccination demonstration
  Pasteur's famous public experiment vaccinating sheep against anthrax provides proof-of-concept for his vaccination theory.
- **1882-01-01** - Rabies research begins
  Pasteur begins systematic study of rabies, working with infected animal brains to isolate and weaken the virus.
- **1885-07-04** - Joseph Meister bitten by rabid dog
  A rabid dog bites 9-year-old Joseph Meister near Alsace. The boy's mother brings him to Pasteur in Paris two days later.
- **1885-07-06** - First rabies vaccination administered
  Pasteur injects Meister with weakened rabies virus cultured in rabbit spinal cord, beginning a 10-day course of 14 injections.
- **1885-10-26** - Meister remains healthy
  Three months after vaccination, Joseph Meister shows no symptoms of rabies. The treatment is declared successful.
- **1886-03-01** - Public announcement of results
  Pasteur presents findings to the French Academy of Sciences. International medical community responds with both acclaim and skepticism.
- **1888-11-14** - Pasteur Institute opens
  The Pasteur Institute is formally inaugurated in Paris with Pasteur as director, becoming a center for rabies treatment and vaccine research.

## Voices

- **Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist** (expert, predictive) - Comptes rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Paris
  > I have not yet dared to treat the human subject, but the time is not far off when I shall venture to do so. If my experiments continue to succeed, I shall then have found the most powerful means of preventing the development of hydrophobia after a bite.
- **Dr. Vulpian, French Academy of Sciences member** (official, celebratory) - Synthesized from period accounts - Academy of Sciences protocols, July-August 1885
  > What Mr. Pasteur has done is not merely a beautiful theoretical discovery - it is a triumph of practical medicine. This will forever change how we regard preventive treatment.
- **Dr. Peter Broca, skeptical French physician** (skeptic, skeptical) - Synthesized from period accounts - French medical journals, 1885
  > A single case does not establish efficacy. We must see many recoveries, rigorously documented, before abandoning centuries of established medical practice.
- **Anonymous journalist, Le Figaro** (media, supportive) - Le Figaro, Paris daily newspaper
  > France may be witnessing the dawn of a new medical age. Monsieur Pasteur has performed what can only be called miraculous - he has conquered the incurable scourge of hydrophobia.

## Impact

Pasteur's successful rabies vaccination demonstrated that infectious disease could be conquered through deliberate scientific method rather than chance or prayer. The treatment's success made him an international celebrity, legitimized germ theory when skeptics still held sway, and created a blueprint for vaccine development that would save millions of lives across the next 150 years.

## Sources

- [Louis Pasteur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur) - Wikipedia

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Canonical: https://recap.at/1885/pasteur-rabies-vaccine