Grancher defends Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment

Background. Louis Pasteur developed a rabies vaccine credited with saving lives. In 1885, Grancher and Alfred Vulpian convinced Pasteur to vaccinate Joseph Meister, a nine-year-old boy mauled by a rabid dog. Grancher, a practising physician who headed the Paris Children's Hospital's paediatric clinic, was responsible for the injections. Further treatments followed, including Jean-Baptiste Jupille in October 1885 and some 350 people in 1886, of whom only one developed rabies.

Defense before the Academy. In 1887, at Pasteur's request, Grancher defended the rabies vaccination to the Académie de Médecine, citing its successful survival rate. The French National Academy of Medicine is identified as the body before which Grancher argued Pasteur's case. This defense drew on the accumulating record of treated patients, most of whom survived exposure to rabies.

Participants. Jacques-Joseph Grancher, a French pediatrician born in Felletin and director of Hôpital des Enfants Malades from 1885, administered the vaccine and mounted its defense. Louis Pasteur, the French chemist and microbiologist who developed the vaccination principles behind the treatment, requested the defense. Alfred Vulpian, a member of the Commission on Rabies, helped convince Pasteur to vaccinate Joseph Meister.