Two series of experiments were being carried out on those 125 dogs. The first consisted in making dogs refractory to rabies by preventive inoculations; the second in preventing the onset of rabies in dogs bitten or subjected to inoculation.
CHAPTER XIII
1885—1888
Pasteur had the power of concentrating his thoughts to such a degree that he often, when absorbed in one idea, became absolutely unconscious of what took place around him. At one of the meetings of the Académie Française, whilst the Dictionary was being discussed, he scribbled the following note on a stray sheet of paper—
“I do not know how to hide my ideas from those who work with me; still, I wish I could have kept those I am going to express a little longer to myself. The experiments have already begun which will decide them.
“It concerns rabies, but the results might be general.
“I am inclined to think that the virus which is considered rabic may be accompanied by a substance which, by impregnating the nervous system, would make it unsuitable for the culture of the microbe. Thence vaccinal immunity. If that is so, the theory might be a general one: it would be a stupendous discovery.
“I have just met Chamberland in the Rue Gay-Lussac, and explained to him this view and my experiments. He was much struck, and asked my permission to make at once on anthrax the experiment I am about to make on rabies as soon as the dog and the culture rabbits are dead. Roux, the day before yesterday, was equally struck.
“Académie Française, Thursday, January 29, 1885.”
Could that vaccinal substance associated with the rabic virus be isolated? In the meanwhile a main fact was acquired, that of preventive inoculation, since Pasteur was sure of his series of dogs rendered refractory to rabies after a bite. Months were going by without bringing an answer to the question “Why?” of the antirabic vaccination, as mysterious as the “Why?” of Jennerian vaccination.
On Monday, July 6, Pasteur saw a little Alsatian boy, Joseph Meister, enter his laboratory, accompanied by his mother. He was only nine years old, and had been bitten two days before by a mad dog at Meissengott, near Schlestadt.