World Rabies Day is celebrated on 28 September to raise awareness about prevention of this dreadful disease. This day also marks the anniversary of Louis Pasteur’s death, who developed first rabies vaccine. In 1885, a nine-year-old from Alsace, Joseph Meister, who was bitten multiple times by rabid dogs was treated by two men including the therapy creator Louis Pasteur, and Emile Roux. Rabies or hydrophobia although rare but was a fearful fascination in Europe, as its patients died painfully and dramatically.
Louis Pasteur, a famous French scientist found that the virus incubation period of rabies can be a criterion for developing a new type of vaccine. The time between the dog bite and sickness was around a month or longer so there was sufficient time to intervene with this vaccine. After working five years on rabies vaccine, Pasteur and his colleagues prepared a live preparation,…
