Rabies Post-Exposure Prophylaxis

Until 1953, rabies post-exposure prophylaxis followed the formula of daily injections with nervoustissue vaccine developed by Pasteur in 1885. However, rabies often developed in persons with severe head or hand bites in spite of such vaccination; the results of treatment applied after wolf bites, for instance, were considered "disastrous."¹ In the light of those failures, the World Health Organization (WHO) discussed the possibility of adding hyperimmune serum to improve the treatment. The opportunity to test that new combination came on the night of August 21, 1954, in a particularly bloody episode in which a large rabid wolf entered the small . . .