On December 27, 1892, the hall of the University of Paris was decorated with lights and colors, and people were holding a grand celebration banquet to commemorate Pasteur's 70th birthday. In addition to representatives of the French scientific community, there were also scientific leaders from various European countries attending the banquet. When the thin and lame white-haired old man Pasteur walked into the hall holding the president's arm, the band played the victory march, and the whole audience burst into cheers. Many congratulations praised the outstanding biologist and chemist Pasteur for his great contributions to mankind. However, despite his age, he was still as humble as a child and said only one sentence: "I am just trying my best. ”
This great scientist spent his life’s energy and combined with the needs of society, conducted in-depth research on rabies such as silkworm disease, chicken cholera, and anthrax, and discovered the rabies vaccine, which has saved the lives of countless patients. Life was pulled back from the brink of death.
One day at noon, the coachman of Dr. Lanulon, a doctor from Telson Hospital, rushed to the Pasteur Institute and asked Pasteur to rush to the hospital. Because a 5-year-old boy had just been admitted to the hospital and was found to be a rabies patient.
When Pasteur rushed to the hospital with his assistant, the poor little boy had already suffered from convulsions. After the doctor took corresponding measures, although the convulsions stopped, his throat seemed to be stuck with something, and he made a sound. A terrifying cry. The child wanted to drink water, but couldn't get it into his mouth. Water flowed from the corners of his mouth, and he was spitting.
After a while, the child just calmed down and wanted to fall asleep, when the convulsions broke out again, and his throat also made a horrifying cry like it was stuck...
Over and over again, After three consecutive attacks, the little boy gradually ran out of energy. Because he couldn't drink water, his throat was clogged with saliva, making it more difficult to breathe, and he eventually suffocated to death.
Facing another young life being swallowed up by the disease, Pasteur was extremely uncomfortable. He really wanted to catch the disease immediately and drive away disaster for mankind.
But how difficult it is! You can only start from scratch. 24 hours after the boy's death, Pasteur took the saliva from the corpse's mouth, diluted it with water, and then injected it into five rabbits for observation. Soon, these rabbits all got rabies and died. Pasteur took out the saliva from the dead rabbit's mouth, diluted it with water and injected it into other rabbits. None of these rabbits were spared.
Obviously, there may be pathogenic bacteria that cause rabies in the saliva. Pasteur observed repeatedly with a microscope, but could not find the germs.
"If the pathogenic bacteria cannot be found, there must be no pathogenic bacteria. However, if the pathogenic bacteria cannot be found, there is no way to conquer rabies." Pasteur fell into a long thought.
Later, Pasteur and his assistants made a careful observation of rabies from a doctor's point of view. They found that no matter whether it is a human or an animal, anyone suffering from rabies will have convulsions and be unable to eat. The symptoms are: Almost the same. Therefore, Pasteur and his associates believed that pathogenic bacteria might be spreading in the nervous system of animals. So they opened the mad dog's head, extracted the venom and injected it directly into the brains of other animals. As a result, the injected animals died of rabies not long after. Experiments have shown that the invisible rabies bacteria is in the dog's brain.
Pasteur and his assistants worked hard to culture rabies bacteria. They used rabbit brains to culture bacteria of varying intensity and injected them more than a hundred times in a row. The results showed that the strongest bacteria could cause the rabbits to become sick in 7 days, while the weakest bacteria could cause symptoms as late as 28 days. However, bacteria suitable for use as vaccines have yet to be cultured.
“If you persist, there will always be results.” Pasteur encouraged each other with his assistants from time to time.
The hard work paid off, and finally one day Pasteur discovered that a dog that had been injected with germs in the laboratory made a slight bark and returned to normal. After a while, they injected the most virulent bacteria into the recovered dog. Months passed and the dog was still alive and well. It seems that it has acquired immunity.
After in-depth research and repeated experiments, Pasteur finally found a practical and effective method of cultivating rabies vaccine.
That is: extract the spinal cord from a dead rabbit, hang it in a bottle that cannot be invaded by microorganisms, and let it dry and shrink. After 14 days, the shrunken spinal cord is taken out, ground up, added with water to make a vaccine, and injected directly into the dog's brain. The next day, the diseased spinal cord that had shrunk for 13 days was injected into it. In this way, the toxicity was gradually enhanced and injected continuously for 14 days. Finally, after a period of time, the dog was injected with fatal bacteria, and the dog did not get sick. In this way, rabies vaccine culture was successful.
But is it safe to inject this vaccine into people? Is it still too late to get vaccinated after being bitten by a rabid dog? These two difficult questions have been tossing over and over in Pasteur's mind. Human life is at stake, and Pasteur must be cautious.
At first, he decided to experiment on himself, but was opposed by many people. One morning, a middle-aged woman with a sad face came outside the institute. She led a child and begged Pasteur to save her child. It turned out that the child's name was Max, and he was bitten by a rabid dog on his way home from school, and his injuries were very serious.
With the support of the doctors, Pasteur, who was hesitant, finally made up his mind to try to inject Meister with the vaccine. After 14 injections, the child's wound was indeed healed. The lucky boy held his mother's hand and walked out of the institute alive and kicking.
The successful trial of rabies vaccine caused a sensation across the European continent. The news spread further and further, and congratulatory letters from various countries flooded into the Pasteur Institute.
Pasteur saved countless patients. People sincerely cheered for his outstanding achievements and affectionately called him "a great scholar and a benefactor of mankind."