Rabies vaccine Behavior modification Joseph Meister reflects Commentary

Pierre Paul Émile Roux, Louis Pasteur immunology

Rabies vaccine

• Émile Roux took the nerve tissue
• of rabbits that had died of rabies
• and let it dry.
• Émile Roux
• was a research assistant
• for Louis Pasteur.
• Even though
• they were not able
• to identify the pathogen
• the idea was to inactivate the virus
• and use that as a vaccine
• against the disease.
• And Joseph Meister,
• nine years old,
• was bitten badly by a rabid dog.
• The vaccine was not tested
• and Louis Pasteur was not licensed
• to practice medicine
• but he did what he could.
• He saved
• the boy’s life.

Behavior modification

• The rabies virus replicates in the muscle
• and enters the central nervous system
• to travel to the brain.
• From the brain,
• it migrates to the salivary glands
• ready to infect its next victim.
• In the brain, it makes its host
• more aggressive and likely to bite
• to facilitate its own transmission.

Joseph Meister reflects

• Clearly, I would have died
• a painful death.
• Who cares what complications
• waited for me?
• Death of old age?
• An aversion to Nazis?
• Fear that I had sent
• my loved ones to their deaths?