Shishuo Xinyu丨Are the “inspirational” stories about rabies vaccines you know the same as these?

Some interesting information about Louis Pasteur and rabies vaccines that may be a little subversive or even... a little scary.

Paris, France, source: pexels.com

1. The first rabies vaccine in the world was not necessarily invented by Louis Pasteur. The first inventor of the rabies vaccine was Italian doctor Eusebio Valli, who injected rabies saliva into frog gastric juice and injected the mixture into at least two patients. In the end, the patients did not get sick. Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficient.

Frog, source: phil.cdc.gov

2. The world's first successful animal rabies vaccine was not invented by Louis Pasteur, but by Professor Pierre Victor Galtier of the Lyon Veterinary School. He not only discovered that dogs can transmit rabies virus to rabbits (laying the foundation for Emile Roux of Pasteur's team to create an animal model), but also successfully immunized 9 sheep and 1 goat;

3. The first person to receive the rabies vaccine developed by Pasteur was not the child we all know, but a 61-year-old man named Girard, who experienced severe symptoms after the vaccination but eventually recovered; the second person to receive the vaccine was an 11-year-old girl named Julie-Antoinette Poughon, who died the day after the vaccination;

Rabies patient, source: phil.cdc.gov

4. Joseph Meister was the third person to receive the Pasteur rabies vaccine. He was only 9 years old at the time and later became the gatekeeper of the Pasteur Institute (inspiring, isn’t it?). However, it should be noted that the vaccine was not given to him by Emile Roux as shown in the picture (below), because Emile Roux believed that there were too many unknown factors and therefore too great a risk, and that it should not be used on humans. In fact, the vaccine was given to the child by Joseph Grancher.

Image source: mauritius-images.com

5. The rabies vaccine that Joseph Meister received was not a vaccine that had been successfully tested on animals (in fact, the overall efficacy was only 62%), but a vaccine prepared by the spinal cord drying method that was used only after the first two vaccinations. It was tested on animals but the safety and effectiveness were not verified before the child was injected;

6. Jean-Baptiste Jupille is described as a hero who was bitten by a mad dog while trying to save other children. However, he attacked the dog with a whip and got his hand bitten by the dog. After receiving Pasteur's vaccine, he did not get sick and later became another gatekeeper of the Pasteur Institute (inspirational × 2);

7. Neither of the dogs that attacked the two children was confirmed to have rabies. One was believed to have rabies because of sawdust in its stomach, and the other was tied up and thrown into the river by Jean-Baptiste Jupille and drowned.

Stray dogs, Source: Source: phil.cdc.gov

8. Joseph Grancher, who was mentioned above as the 9-year-old who vaccinated, accidentally stabbed himself with the syringe while vaccinating Jean-Baptiste Jupille, and then refused to take the vaccine developed by Pasteur;

9. Before studying rabies vaccine, Pasteur only studied bacterial vaccines, and they were all attenuated live vaccines. When studying rabies live attenuated live vaccines, Pasteur still believed that the rabies virus was in the blood. As a result, a doctor named Pierre-Henri Duboué sent his research (the virus is in the nerves) to Pasteur, and Pasteur found the right research direction.

10. Pasteur was a misogynist because he believed that too many women in his classes would lead to a decline in teaching standards.

Scientific progress is often accompanied by recklessness, but the limitations of the scientific environment may lead to unreliable results. If more information is not reviewed, much of history will often be buried in illusions created by inaccurate information.

Therefore, the verification methods for vaccines and medicines need to become increasingly stringent, and even need to be approved by ethics committees, and scientific research methods (randomization, control, blinding, testing, etc.) must be used for judgment, so that the results are "increasingly accurate" rather than simply being determined to be "safe" or "effective" based on one person's opinion or mindless remarks in classic ancient books.

Of course, there are no perfect facts, only perfect stories.

May the world be free of epidemics

=Pill=

Disclaimer: This article was created out of personal interest, only to help more ordinary people have a clearer understanding of vaccines. The content and views do not represent any organization, unit, or institution, and it has not accepted any form of sponsorship. All pictures are from public online platforms or depositphotos platforms that have paid for personal use rights. If the content is incorrect, please criticize yourself more (not).