On 4th July 1885, a ‘mad dog’ afflicted with rabies attacked and bit Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy from Alsace in France. This illness which causes encephalitis is terminal even today if it is not treated before the symptoms appear, and in the 19th century getting rabies was equivalent to a death sentence with terrible suffering. The young Joseph Meister was rushed to Paris two days later where Louis Pasteur, a French chemist and microbiologist, was developing a vaccine for rabies. Even though it had only been tested on dogs before, and any adverse effects could not be fully predicted, the urgent situation led the boy to become the first human test subject for the treatment. With the assistance of local physicians, Pasteur inoculated Joseph Meister and the results were a success as he recovered from the attack without developing the illness, marking the invention of the rabies vaccine. In the painting, Pasteur is seen with a zoomorphic leg inoculating the boy as they both rest on a dragon-like figure which is wriggling under them. This may be a reference to 19th century visual representations of illnesses as dragons and other monstrous figures that doctors are often presented warding off, while it could also relate to the nature of the symptoms associated with rabies, which include confusion, hallucinations, and delirium.