Jean-Baptist Jupille was a shepherd boy from Pasteur's home district of the Jura. He was bitten as he tried to protect other children from a dog supposed but not proven to be rabid. Pasteur inoculated him over a 14-day period with increasingly virulent (and painful) injections of vaccine. Much publicity was given to the bravery of the first children who received Pasteur's rabies vaccine and helped vindicate the role of experimental biology. In 1915, a 10-year study revealed that of 6000 people bitten by rabid animals, only 0.6% of those vaccinated had died compared with 16% of the rest.

Photograph of a sculpture in the grounds of the Pasteur Institute, Paris.