[Treatment of rabies in man in Vaud and Fribourg before Pateu: therapeutic observations of Drs. Guisan and Schaller in the 19th century].
The picture showing the little Joseph Meister being treated against rabies under Louis Pasteur's eyes, on July 6, 1885, has quickly become a symbol of the triumphant progress of medicine, even though diseases with high mortality like tuberculosis or diphtheria could still not be healed with efficient therapeutic means. But before the discoveries of Pasteur, what was actually, in daily practice, the kind of response an ordinary doctor could give to human rabies? A Swiss physician, Charles-Hector Guisan, developed a therapy based on the use of sodium arsenate, which he published in the columns of the Gazette des Hôpitaux civils et militaires in 1854. This arsenic therapy was to be put into practice on a larger scale in the canton of Fribourg by Dr Jean-Louis Schaller (1816-1880), who meticulously wrote observations in a notebook on the cases of 13 persons wounded by a rabid dog in 1855.
Bosson
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Universitaire de Fribourg, case postale 1036, CH-1701 Fribourg. BossonA@fr.ch
D000818:Animals; D001149:Arsenates / Q000266:history*; D001733:Bites and Stings / Q000266:history*; D002648:Child; D004285:Dogs; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011818:Rabies / Q000266:history*; D013557:Switzerland
D001149:Arsenates; C009277:sodium arsenate