A lesson in the value of conviction. The time is 1860, and cholera is beginning to spread throughout France’s chicken population. Louis Pasteur and his assistant, Emile Roux, collect samples and deduce that disease can be transmitted through air. They then draw blood from the chickens and see an unidentified germ in the specimens. While Louis Pasteur and Roux work with the samples of blood, Pasteur has a stroke. When Louis Pasteur finally comes back to the laboratory, he and Roux discover that the blood has altered from time. When they inject this blood into the chickens again, the cholera germs are killed. They have created a vaccination for the chickens. Louis Pasteur’s personal conviction is that vaccinations will work on people. Therefore, he and Roux continue to experiment for four years until a young boy, Joseph Meister, contracts rabies from a wolf, and his father brings him to Pasteur. Although hesitant to experiment on a human, Pasteur agrees to give him the shot. After five days of waiting and another shot, Joseph Meister recovers, and the world’s first human vaccination is introduced. Includes 48-page activity book.