Posted on 07/07/2015 2:07:10 AM PDT by nickcarraway
He received his inoculation directly from Louis Pasteur, on July 6, 1885
Handout picture of a two-month-old bear cub named Boo Boo held by a student at Washington University in St. Louis MORE Bear Cub Meant to Relax Students Before Finals Ends Up Biting Them and Sparking a Rabies Scare Rabies is among the most terrifying viruses to get. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “once clinical signs of rabies appear, the disease is nearly always fatal.” (Really: there have been fewer than 10 documented cases of survival once symptoms appear.) Luckily for us—and our pets—Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine that can stop things from getting to that point.
The first time the vaccine was ever administered to a human being–on this day in 1885–was by Pasteur himself. Knowing that the disease was otherwise fatal, both doctor and patient (or, rather, patient’s mother) were willing to risk whatever harm might come from the injection, which had only been tested on dogs.
As TIME recounted in 1939:
One hot July morning in 1885, feverish little Joseph Meister was dragged by his frantic mother through the streets of Paris in search of an unknown scientist who, according to rumors, could prevent rabies. For nine-year-old Joseph had been bitten in 14 places by a huge, mad dog and in a desperate attempt to cheat death, his mother had fled from their home town in Alsace to Paris. Early in the afternoon Mme Meister met a young physician in a hospital. “You mean Pasteur,” he said. “I’ll take you there.”
Bacteriologist Louis Pasteur, who kept kennels of mad dogs in a crowded little laboratory and was hounded by medical criticism,
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
You mean that rabies is fatal 100% of the time in unvaccinated people?
Almost but not quite. Modern medicine has allowed treatment of symptoms to be effective enough that a very small number of people have survived. Prior to modern medicine it was 100% mortal.
It was 100% fatal prior to 2004.
And a nasty way to go, too.
Yup. Read a novel when pretty young in which one of the characters gets rabies and there is a detailed description of the progression of the disease. Pretty much traumatized me.
Still remember it 50 years later. :)
There are videos on youtube of people with rabies. It is a terrible disease. Victims have occasional periods of lucidity where they understand exactly what is happening to them.
.......Think of it, gentlemen. Hoof-and-mouth
disease a thing of the past!
Never mind that $h!t,
here comes Mongo!
There’s a movie from the 70’s I think about a group of men trying to haul a load of nitroglycerin to a mine in South America. One has rabies and can’t stand the sound of water running. I can’t recall the name of the movie.
IIRC it’s fatal once the onset of major symptoms, but treatable at the earliest stages.
Dog bite victims that show up at the Dr. Office, urgent care, emergency rooms usually trigger a report to the city which results in a visit from an animal control officer and inspection/quarantine for 7 days and then another inspection of the dog. At least that’s what happens where I live.
The Sorcerer. I think Roy Sheider [from Jaws]was in it.
This is probably a stupid question, but, given that possums rarely contract rabies due to their body temperature being too low for the virus to survive, why do they not simply lower people’s temps to save them?
After a go-round with 3 rabid coons in my yard, I had to fight to get the shots.
The SPCA said it was “unnecessary” because they believed I didn’t “have rabies” but would not let me visit the shelter animals because I had been exposed to rabies and was a threat to them. <-— o.O
I also had to bag the coons and take them to the SPCA, myself.
When the infuriated health department head got involved, they finally agreed to test the coons [all 3, positive] then I was told to go the ER.
The doctor said I could not get rabies unless I had a deep puncture wound bite.
When I said that was not true, he sat down and *Googled rabies*!
And only after reading a website that seemed to “surprise” him, he gave me the first shot *9 days after the exposure*.
By that time, thinking no one was going to bother treating me, I had made up a list of people I was going to bite.
From the nitro plot angle, it sounds like Sorcerer. But no rabies in that film.
What is scary (as told by my vet, who gets the antibodies herself) is that rabies can remain dormant for a few years in a person’s system.
The original 1953 French film was called The Wages of Fear.
Sorcerer has the Tangerine Dream sound track, so there’s that.
Don’t recall rabies in either.
I’m thinking I have two movies intertwined. The other one was Rage (1966) which was about a dog biting a person in a town and trying to get that person to care. But all the write-ups never mention nitro. So I don’t know. Rage starred Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens.
The sheriff is.....near!
‘Scuse me while I whip this out.
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