Pasteur, Louis

1 1/2 pages (6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.; 165 x 108 mm); formerly folded.

Stargardt, 11 March 1993, lot 591 (unnamed consignor)

see cataloguing
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"The bites of a rabid wolf are more often deadly than those of the dog."

The rabies vaccine was created by Emile Roux, a colleague of Pasteur who had been working with a killed vaccine produced by desiccating the spinal cords of infected rabbits. The vaccine had been tested in 50 dogs before its first human trial, on 9-year old Joseph Meister (6 July 1885), after the boy was badly mauled by a rabid dog. Three months later he examined Meister and found that he was in good health, a success which laid the foundation for numerous other vaccines.

The present manuscript reports a less successful case, probably due to the prolonged time between bite and treatment, which clearly demonstrates Pasteur's compassionate nature:

"Death (by dog bite) 16 days after the bite. If it is true, as I believe having given proof, the bites of a rabid wolf are more often deadly than those of the dog, this must be attributed to the nature of the bites and their location, not to the fact that the inoculation may encounter a different form of virus in a violent dog, one should expect to see dog bites as terrible as those of the wolf."

"The most shocking example was given us in the beginning of September 1886. On the 4th of September, a child came to our laboratory, brought there by her father from Palermo. She was bitten in the eye by a dog 14 days before. Their trip from Palermo to Paris had taken 6 days. At her arrival, the poor child had full-blown rabies. Therefore the incubation period would have only been a maximum of 19 days. Dr. Roux, from whom they requested the rabies treatment, deemed it useless to subject her to the standard precautionary innoculations. Knowing the remarkable results that Dr. Coqu of Nancy had obtained from hypodermic injection to reduce tetanus, Dr. Roux, with the help of Dr [André] Chantemesse used this procedure for the little Italian girl and succeeded in calming down the spasms. But the rabies still followed its course and the unfortunate child died the 6th of September in the morning 16 days after she was bitten. The autopsy, which took place the next morning, allowed us to inoculate, the 7 September, some rabbits by trepanation, the bulb and the nerves of the eye which were infected."