AnthraxIn 1877, Louis Pasteur began work on virulent anthrax bacteria in his laboratory at Lille, France, spurred by a decastating outbreak (1876-77) of anthrax, a disease fatal to cattle and sheep. Robert Koch had already identified the anthrax bacillus. Pasteur showed the disease was caused by this living organism, not by a toxin. He worked with a solution containing the infection, which at a dilution factor of 1 part to 100 still caused death as the living organism continued to multiply. By 1881, he prepared a vaccine made from a weakened strain of the anthrax bacterium. He tested it on 5 May 1881. Cows and sheep innoculated with the vaccine were immunized and survived, while an untreated control group died. He later produced an effective rabies vaccine, tested on Joseph Meister on 6 Jul 1885.« |
