• Did Joseph Meister become, in 1885, the first young man to receive Louis Pasteur's “experimental vaccine” against rabies?

  • This story, which echoes some people's opposition to the coronavirus vaccine, is true.

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    takes stock.

For once it is not (directly) the Covid-19 ... On Facebook, a story unleashes passions between pro-vaccine and antivax. One of the publications relating it, particularly viral, was published on July 6, exactly one hundred and thirty-six years after the event it relates. We read that on that same day, in 1885, “Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old Alsatian, bitten 14 times by a rabid dog, [received] the experimental rabies vaccine designed by Louis Pasteur”. An injection that saved his life, it is specified, before a tackle in conclusion: “No moron at the time to say we do not have enough hindsight. "

In the comments, many claim their freedom to be vaccinated or not, others doubt the dangerousness of Covid-19, while some argue that the young boy who received the experimental vaccine from the French researcher had not contracted the rage.

A final hypothesis which gives us the opportunity to dive back into history.

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To find out if the story of Joseph Meister is legend or intoxicating, we thought that the best way to verify it was to get closer to the Institut Pasteur.

And the foundation did not take long to respond, confirming the veracity of the story relayed on Facebook.

Anyone can also get up to speed in general culture by visiting the Institut Pasteur website, under the heading “Our history”.

In the section devoted to the period 1877-1887, the institute reports that “on the morning of July 6, 1885, a 9-year-old boy, Joseph Meister, who had come from Alsace and bitten 14 times by a rabid dog, gave the opportunity to Louis Pasteur to overcome his final hesitations and to test his treatment in humans.

Not being a doctor, he entrusted Dr Grancher with the task of inoculating the child with the treatment.

In ten days, Joseph Meister received a total of 13 injections of less and less attenuated rabies marrow.


This first vaccination is a success: Joseph Meister will never develop rabies and will become the first human being vaccinated.

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A second, better-known success

He added: “Louis Pasteur will however remain very discreet about this success, this experience having taken place more or less discreetly.

It will be different for his second success.

In September 1885, Jean-Baptiste Jupille, a young 15-year-old shepherd, presented himself to the laboratory in rue d'Ulm [in Paris], deeply bitten by a rabid dog […].

Louis Pasteur applies his treatment for the second time, with the same success and makes sure to make this story known to the whole world.

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Also note that, thanks to the archives of the Pasteur Foundation, we discover that the photo illustrating the Facebook post does not show Louis Pasteur with Joseph Meister, but with his own grandson.

Joseph Meister himself testified to the experience in 1939. In a recording available on the Ina website, the ex-guinea pig tells how his mother, determined to save him, will go out of her way to be go to Paris, find Louis Pasteur, and convince him to test his vaccine on his son.

Joseph Meister also evokes the bonds of friendship that he will keep with the researcher, who died in 1895, and his duties as janitor within the Institut Pasteur.

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