Louis Pasteur developed the first rabies vaccine in 1885. Working with Émile Roux and other members of his laboratory, Pasteur weakened the rabies virus by drying infected nervous tissue from animals. The gradual treatment used preparations thought to become increasingly potent, giving the patient’s immune system time to respond before exposure to fully virulent disease could become fatal.
The breakthrough became famous after nine-year-old Joseph Meister was bitten by a rabid dog. Pasteur began treating him in Paris on 6 July 1885, administering 13 inoculations over about 10 days. Meister survived, and the result established Pasteur’s treatment as a landmark in medical history. Pasteur was not a licensed physician, so the decision to treat a child carried considerable personal and legal risk.
The credit is usually given to Pasteur, although Roux made crucial contributions to the laboratory work and vaccine method. This early preparation was not the same as today’s modern cell-culture rabies vaccines, which are safer and more standardized. The first rabies vaccine was used in the United States in 1886, and the Pasteur Institute opened in Paris in 1888.