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Evolution of the Rabies Vaccine

The first rabies vaccine was formulated by Louis Pasteur using the nerve tissues of animals known to be infected with the disease. In his experiments, his usual laboratory animal is the rabbit, simply because rabbits are known to quickly show rabies symptoms.

He found out that when the spinal cord of rabid rabbit is dried for five days, and a healthy rabbit is exposed to it, the healthy rabbit becomes sick with rabies only after eight days. When the spinal cord is dried for 9 days, a healthy rabbit exposed to it becomes sick after two weeks. But when the spinal cord is dried for 14 days, an exposed healthy rabbit showed no symptoms of rabies. This final vaccine was the one that Pasteur used on a nine-year-old boy bitten by a rabid animal. Thus, the original method of making a rabies vaccine is by drying an infected spinal cord for 14 days.

Later, Hogyes modified the Pasteur method. Instead of drying, he made dilutions of the rabies virus, to make it less virulent.

Another modification was made by Harris. The infected cord and brain is frozen with carbon dioxide and then finely ground up. The powdered form is placed in a vacuum and dried using sulfuric acid. Then, the powder vaccine is stored below freezing point.

Such techniques made the mass production of this vaccine possible. To use it, it must be mixed with a salt solution. According to Harris, about 10 injections would be sufficient for an ordinary treatment but for more serious cases, 14 injections would be needed. In case you’re thinking of a patient being treated like a pin cushion, these injections will be administered within a period of four weeks or thirty days.

The Cumming method uses the process of dialysis to inactivate the virus while the Kelser method uses chloroform-treated rabies vaccine. A method by Semple involves the dilution of the virus in 1% carbolic acid. This is further diluted with a salt solution.

At present, there are three known types of rabies vaccines, the HDCV (human diploid cell vaccine), the RVA (rabies vaccine absorbed), and the PCEC (purified chick embryo cell culture) vaccine.

There might be more modifications in the future, but the basic principle remains the same: a body is given rabies viruses that are dead or too weak to cause any harm against the pet or human, but can still stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that are prepared against future rabies exposure.