Louis Pasteur first tested his rabies vaccine on a human in 1885. Rabies was almost invariably fatal once symptoms appeared, so treating a person after a serious bite was an extraordinary medical risk. Pasteur and his colleagues had previously tested their developing treatment on dogs before attempting human treatment.
The first widely recognized human case was Joseph Meister, a nine-year-old boy badly bitten by a dog believed to be rabid. Treatment began in Paris on 6 July 1885. Over the following days, Meister received a series of injections made from rabies-infected rabbit spinal tissue that had been dried for different lengths of time to weaken the virus.
The doses became progressively more potent. Meister did not develop rabies, and Pasteur’s team regarded the result as a success. Pasteur was not a licensed physician, making the decision especially controversial, so he consulted doctors Alfred Vulpian and Jacques-Joseph Grancher before proceeding.
Some historical accounts note that other people may have received experimental treatment before Meister, including cases whose diagnoses or outcomes were uncertain. Nevertheless, 1885 is the canonical year for Pasteur’s first human rabies-vaccine trial and the year the treatment entered medical history.