English
Deutsch* Life * Research * Experiments * Media < back
What is special about Paul Ehrlich's research?
The medical researcher Paul Ehrlich was one of the first to discover that important vital functions of the body take place according to chemical laws. In his almost 40 years of work as a doctor and researcher, Paul Ehrlich was responsible for pioneering discoveries in the research of human tissue and the development of vaccines or cures for diseases. He gained many insights by staining (coloring) body cells or blood and examining them with a microscope. He was the first to discover from staining white blood cells with pigment that there are different types of them. This helped to better identify and treat blood disorders.
Ehrlich also investigated the clash of harmful poisons with the body's own antibodies, which enabled him to develop various remedies - perhaps the most important of which was Salvarsan, a drug to cure syphilis. It contained the poison arsenic, but its particular quality was that the harmful effect only attacked germs in the human body. The targeted destruction of pathogens by chemical means is still used in medicine today, and is called chemotherapy. Paul Ehrlich is considered to be its founder.
The course of Paul Ehrlich's life
Paul Ehrlich was born on 14 March 1854 to Jewish parents in the Silesian (now Polish) town of Strehlen. His father, Ismar Ehrlich, was a liqueur manufacturer, royal lottery retailer and head of the Jewish community in Strehlen. Paul grew up in sheltered conditions with no financial worries, but because of his Jewish ancestry he would feel the negative attitude from groups of the population towards Jews throughout his life. At the age of ten, Paul went in 1864 to the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau, about 40 km from Strehlen, and was only able to visit his family and relatives during the holidays.
He graduated in 1872 and began studying medicine the same year. After stays in Wroclaw, Strasbourg and Freiburg, Paul finally completed his studies in Leipzig in 1877, and a year later finished his doctoral thesis there. His work focused mainly on the coloring of animal tissue he had done during his studies. In 1878 Paul Ehrlich began working as an assistant doctor at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. In addition to the daily care of patients, he also carried out his staining experiments in Berlin. One can even say that he “preferred to be in the laboratory than at the bedside”.
In 1883 he began his collaboration with Robert Koch, a well-known doctor and biologist who studied pathogens and their control. At the age of 29, Paul Ehrlich met his future wife Hedwig Pinkus, the daughter of a Jewish textile factory owner, in Berlin in February 1883. He was very much in love and feared that "my microscope would rust and the lovely colors would mold ..."
The wedding took place just a month later and after a year their first child was born. The Ehrlichs became parents for the second time two years later with the birth of a second daughter.
At the end of 1888, Paul Ehrlich was forced to give up his job as assistant doctor at the Charité due to an infection in his laboratory, from which he developed pulmonary tuberculosis. After a recovery cure in Egypt, Ehrlich returned in 1889. But since he didn't get his old job back, he set up his own laboratory, and in the following years worked on antidotes for pathogens, also called antibodies or healing serums. Together with the researcher Emil von Behring, he managed to develop a healing serum for the dangerous throat disease diphtheria. Around the same time he introduced his so called side-chain theory, which explained the formation of "healing" antibodies.
The Institute for Serum Research and Testing was founded in Berlin in 1896, and Paul Ehrlich became its director. The institute was moved to Frankfurt in 1899; it was enlarged and housed in a modern building where Ehrlich had better research facilities. In 1908 he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his theory of side-chains, today called macromolecules.
Two years later, he achieved a real medical milestone with the drug Salvarsan. The "magic bullet" only attacked the pathogens of syphilis infection in the body. However, many people were outraged by the high price and harmful side effects of Salvarsan. Paul Ehrlich and his employees were accused of enriching themselves with unfair prices, and in 1914 there was even a criminal trial.
As a result of this lawsuit and his heavy workload, Paul Ehrlich's health deteriorated. During a cure in Bad Homburg, he died after a heart attack at the age of 61 on 20 August 1915.
