Which inventor developed the first successful rabies vaccine in 1885?

Louis Pasteur developed the first successful rabies vaccine in 1885.

Pasteur and his collaborators created the treatment by weakening the rabies virus through a series of experiments with infected animal nervous tissue. The method used progressively less potent preparations, intended to train the body to resist the disease before symptoms appeared.

On July 6, 1885, Pasteur treated Joseph Meister, a nine-year-old boy from Alsace who had been badly bitten by a rabid dog. Pasteur administered a series of injections over several days. Meister survived, and the case became a landmark in the history of vaccination and medical microbiology.

Pasteur was not the first person to use vaccination: Edward Jenner’s smallpox work came earlier. Pasteur also did not identify a conventional, easily isolated bacterium as the cause of rabies; the virus was too small to be seen with the microscopes of his time. His work helped establish the principle of laboratory-developed vaccines against infectious disease.