Louis Pasteur: A Boy Was Bitten by a Mad Dog… and Pasteur Took a Huge Risk

In July 1885, a mad dog bit a nine-year-old boy fourteen times.

A scientist had a new vaccine, but he had never tried it on a person.

Would the boy live?

This is the story of Louis Pasteur.

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Microbe. A microbe is a living thing so small that you can only see it with a microscope.

Pasteur showed that tiny microbes cause disease.

Pasteurise. To pasteurise a drink means to heat it gently to kill harmful microbes.

The past is pasteurised.

Today, most of our milk is pasteurised.

Rabies. Rabies is a deadly disease that people can catch from the bite of an infected animal.

In those days, rabies almost always killed.

Experimental. Something experimental is new and has not been fully tested yet.

His rabies vaccine was still experimental.

Take a risk. When you take a risk, you do something even though it could go badly wrong.

The past is took a risk.

Pasteur took a huge risk.

Now, one pattern: had no choice but to.

We use it when there is only one possible thing to do.

There was only one thing he could do: try.

He had no choice but to try.

Ready? Let's begin.

Louis Pasteur was born in a small town in eastern France in 1822.

His father was a tanner.

At school, he was an average student, but he loved art.

As a teenager, he drew portraits of his family and neighbours.

Then he discovered chemistry, and it changed his life.

Around 1860, he did a famous experiment with flasks that had long, curved necks, like a swan.

Broth stayed fresh in them for months.

The reason was simple.

The microbes in the air could not get in.

Microbes, he realised, were everywhere, and they made wine go sour.

Gently heating the wine killed them without spoiling the taste.

The method still carries his name.

Today, most of our milk is pasteurised.

In 1868, at 45, a stroke partly paralysed the left side of his body.

Delicate work with his hands became difficult, so he had no choice but to let his assistants do much of it.

But his mind never stopped.

Then he turned to rabies.

In those days, rabies almost always killed.

In his laboratory, he dried the spinal cords of infected rabbits, which made the disease weaker day by day.

It protected dogs.

But he had never tried it on a human being.

On 6 July 1885, a mother arrived from a small village in Alsace with her son, Joseph Meister.

Two days earlier, a mad dog had bitten him fourteen times.

His mother had no choice but to beg Pasteur for help.

But Pasteur was not a medical doctor.

If the boy died, he would be blamed.

His rabies vaccine was still experimental.

Two doctors examined Joseph and agreed that he had no other hope.

Pasteur felt he had no choice but to try.

Every day for ten days, Doctor Grancher gave Joseph an injection, each one stronger than the last.

Pasteur took a huge risk.

At night, he could not sleep.

His wife wrote to their children: "Your father has had another bad night."

Days passed. Then weeks. Joseph stayed healthy.

He played, he ate, he laughed.

The vaccine had worked.

Joseph Meister had been saved.

A few months later, a 15-year-old shepherd was bitten while protecting younger children from a mad dog.

He was saved too.

In 1886, nineteen Russian farmers bitten by a wolf travelled all the way to Paris. Sixteen survived.

People around the world sent money, and in 1888, the Pasteur Institute opened in Paris.

Pasteur died in 1895.

Years later, the boy he had saved, Joseph Meister, worked there as the caretaker.

Let's review. Pasteur showed that tiny microbes cause disease.

Today, most of our milk is pasteurised.

In those days, rabies almost always killed.

His rabies vaccine was still experimental.

Pasteur took a huge risk.

And remember: he had no choice but to try.

Louis Pasteur's story teaches us: sometimes the bravest science is a careful risk to save one life.

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