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**The Hindu: Science For All**

**Pasteur’s Gamble: How the First Rabies Vaccine Saved a Boy and Ushered in a New Era of Medicine**

**Paris, July 9, 2025 (Updated)** – In a groundbreaking event that would reshape the landscape of medicine, French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur administered the first successful rabies vaccine to a young boy in July 1885. The story, recounted 140 years later, remains a powerful testament to scientific innovation and the courage to confront uncertainty.

Nine-year-old Joseph Meister, severely bitten by a rabid dog in Alsace, was brought to Pasteur’s laboratory in Paris by his desperate mother. Rabies, though rare, was a terrifying threat. Pasteur had been tirelessly working to develop a rabies vaccine, facing challenges in isolating the virus due to the limitations of 19th-century microscopes.

His team, including Emile Roux, had experimented on animals, developing a method of weakening the virus by exposing spinal cord sections from infected rabbits to air. While successful in dogs, Pasteur hesitated to use the untested vaccine on a human. Faced with the near-certain death of Meister, Pasteur, with the support of physicians Alfred Vulpain and Jacques Joseph Grancher, made the agonizing decision to proceed.

Over ten days, Grancher administered 13 doses of the vaccine to Meister. In less than a month, it was clear: the boy was saved. Meister did not develop rabies. Pasteur, emboldened by this success, treated a young shepherd, Jean-Baptiste Jupille, bitten by a rabid dog with the same life-saving result.

News of Pasteur’s triumph spread rapidly, drawing people from around the globe seeking treatment and driving the establishment of the Pasteur Institute in 1888, a center dedicated to vaccination, research, and education. Pasteur’s work, conducted before a formal understanding of immunization existed, not only saved countless lives but also laid the groundwork for modern vaccinology and our understanding of infectious diseases.

Joseph Meister, whose life was dramatically altered by Pasteur’s vaccine, later served as a concierge at the Pasteur Institute for decades. He died on June 24, 1940.

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