It is always illuminating to engage the Internet to connect with a special day in history every day of the year.

This week in 1885 Louis Pasteur injected a young boy with his rabies vaccine.  Although the scientist did not know if his vaccine would work, the boy’s distraught mother was willing to try anything.

The vaccine worked.  The boy lived.

That was a breakthrough, which reverberated around the world.  Pasteur treated some 350 rabies-infected people and all but one in this group survived.   That lone exception was a patient who had waited 37 days before coming to see Pasteur. 

Later on 19 Russians, bitten by rabid wolves, which is much worse than being bitten by a dog, found their way to the legendary French scientist for treatment.  He saved sixteen of them.

Perhaps he is most famous for developing the process for the pasteurization of milk. When this accomplished man died, I would bet he did not have a scrapbook or any plaques on his wall.  Selah!