Erlich Paul Biography

Moreover, at first he did not proceed from bacteriology, the successes of which then shocked the whole world. At that time, the greatest hopes gave rise to antideria serum proposed in the year by the German bacteriologist Emil Beering - for which he and the French microbiologist Emil Pierre Ru were divided by the Nobel Prize, Paul Ehrlich, an outstanding German doctor, a bacteriologist, a microbiologist and a biochemist, one of the foundations of immunology and one of the founders chemotherapy.

He formulated the first chemical interpretation of immunological reactions - “Theory of lateral chains”, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize together with I. proved the possibility of targeted synthesis of chemotherapeutic agents. The path of Erlich in science began with colors and was associated with the color of blood cells. Using various dyes and methods of staining, he established the presence of various forms of blood leukocytes, showed the value of the bone marrow for the formation of granulocytes, monocytes and established the role of lymphoid organs in the formation of lymphocytes; differentiated certain forms of leukemia and created the theory of hematopoiesis; He discovered the so -called fat cells in the connective tissue and explained the meaning of methomasia in general.

Thanks to the methods of intravital staining, he first determined the existence of a hematoencephalic barrier and contributed to the development of histology of the nervous system. He also developed a method for staining tuberculosis bacilli fuchsin, which was of great importance for clinical diagnosis of tuberculosis. Paul Erlich was born on March 14 in Silesia Stshenin, Poland in a Jewish family of an innkeeper.

His father, Ismar Erlich and the mother of Rosa, were not interested in science in the girlishness of Weigert. But his grandfather from his father taught physics and botany. By a strange coincidence of the circumstances, wherever Paul studied, whether it was the Breslavl gymnasium or medical faculties of universities in Breslavl, where he entered the year, Strasbourg, where he moved through the semester, Freiburg or Leipzig, where he finally received a doctor’s diploma, he firmly took first place among the poor.

Newton, Linnaeus, Helmholtz and Einstein also studied poorly, and they are not alone. Apparently, when there is no motivation, the desire fades; Where interest is - there is the path. Healing did not seduce him, the type of corpses, torn and bloodied tissues, caused confusion in his fragile soul. He was attracted by another ... The youth of Paul Erlich, on the one hand, coincided with a wide study of dyes in the largest laboratories in the world, which was of great importance for his method, on the other hand - he witnessed the most sensational discoveries in medicine.

Two new stars shone in the sky of science: Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur. All this played a role in the creation of his own theory of the fight against microbes. A young student who had just begun the study of clinical medicine, he read the work on lead poisoning, which greatly interested him. It said that with poisoning, lead gathers mainly in certain organs, which is easy to prove chemically; Therefore, there is an affinity between fabric and extraneous substance.

This was the starting point for the chemotherapeutic insight of Erlich. He decided that it was necessary to find substances that are attached to the pathogens of the disease, they are binded and thereby prevent them from harm the body. It was led to such ideas by an analogy with paint, which sticks to fibers of fabrics and thus paints matter, it also picked up to bacteria and thereby kills them.

It all started with a simple hobby. Dr. Erlich, working in the year by the senior doctor of the Berlin clinic, was dealing with the issue of coloring and developed his own methods that he used in histological studies. He stained the colonies of bacteria on glass, then began to paint the tissues of animals who died from contagious diseases, and finally decided to paint bacteria that fell into a living organism.

It was for this purpose that he once introduced methylene blue into the blood of an infected rabbit. What was his amazement when, after opening the corpse, he saw that the brain and all the nerves were painted in blue, and other tissues remained not painted. So simple observation of the result of the experience gave an impetus to the emergence of the famous theory of the “magic bullet” - a bullet that could deal with parasitic microbes with one well -aimed hit, one blow.

That was the idea of ​​"therapy of sterilizans Magnes" - therapy, which completely cleanses the body of bacteria. The role of the "magic bullet" was to play some newly found dye. In the year, Erlich went to work at the Institute of Experimental Serotherapy in Frankfurt and Main and has become its director now the institute is named Erlich-“Paul-Ehrlich-Institut”.

In the year with his assistant Japanese Sakhashiro Khata - Erlich tried a huge number - above - all kinds of dyes in order to finally find a means of combating tripapanosomes - the main culprit of several painful and often ending with a fatal outcome of human diseases.The greatest fame among the ailments caused by the tripanosomes was “sleepy” African disease. Many scientists had to work hard to raise a curtain of mystery over this disease.

The research took years, but the efforts were in vain: all the weaved dyes were powerless against small mobile tripanos. However, failures only fired up Erlich’s research interest. He read the mountains of literature, hoping to stumble upon something that leads to the thought ... Calling once a chemical magazine, he, to his surprise, learned about the existence of a new patented remedy, which was called the "Atoxil" non-amodest-lat.

It was reported that the new remedy is effective in the treatment of a “sleepy” disease, which meant that Atoxil was killed by a tripanos. Teacher Erlich Robert Koch himself went to the African jungle to make sure of the sensational opening. He tried the drug on the inhabitants of Africa, who had not yet had time to die from a terrible "sleepy" illness. As a result, the life of the unfortunate Africans was preserved, but they all lost their eyesight.

As Erlich later found out, Atoxil contained arsenic. However, having set experience with atoxil on mice, Erlich discovered that Ulengut and Salmon, who published unfinished material, nevertheless attacked the right mark. Mice infected with tripanosomes were almost cured. Part of the Tripanos died from this poison. By this time, Erlich finally left the dyes and came close to the atoxil.

He sought to change his chemical structure in such a way to make atoxil destructive only for parasites. Work in the walls of the Institute in Frankfurt-on-Main boiled. The main chemist of the institute Bertheim made miracles of chemical synthesis. But it was worth making any noticeable success, the tripanosomes produced immunity-their death ceased.

Erlich discovered a medicine for a “sleepy” disease - a tripPiprrot, later named Bayer, and later Germanin. However, it was too early to part with arsenic Erlich ... It was at that moment that Erlich overtakes the news of the discovery of the sophilis pathogen and the Hoffmann. Only three months were needed by this scientist to find a “pale monster”, slipping away from the eyes of all the previous bacteriologists, starting from Robert Koch.

The peculiarity of open parasites is extremely poorly stained with dyes of the researchers to call them “pale”, and the fact that they resembled small spiral -like snakes suggested the name “spirochet” under a microscope. The history of the study and the fight against sexually transmitted diseases is old, like the history of mankind. Girolamo Thracan -, the Italian doctor and poet, wrote a poem about the "French" illness - syphilis.

It was to fraqualu that the name of the disease in medicine. John Vidman XV century. Having set the experience on himself, the English doctor John Gunter decided to contribute to the resolution of a long -standing dispute: whether there are three sexually transmitted gonorrhea diseases, mild chack, syphilis with different diseases, or are it only different stages of one disease. In the year, he infected himself with the secretions of a patient with gonorrhea and received not only this disease, but also syphilis.

He did not suspect that together with the pus also introduced material from Shankra, which the patient also suffered and who clearly slipped away from the attention of the doctor. He only saw that, through one experiment, he caused both other painful phenomena: first, of course, gonorrhea, which manifests itself in a few days, and then, after a certain time, syphilis.

He believed that this experiment proved the theory of unity, the adherent of which he was. A few years later, he wrote about this disease a book in English, which soon published in translations into German and French. When the era of bacteriology came, everywhere they began to look for pathogens of infectious diseases. And then the pathogens of three sexually transmitted diseases were opened.

The first to find the causative agent of the gonorrhea. Viennese dermatologist-venereologist Albert Ludwig Neisser-a native and professor of the university in Breslau opened him in the year. The second was found the causative agent of the soft chancra. The Italian dermatologist August Ducry -, a professor in skin diseases in Pisa and Rome, made this discovery when he was still a young doctor.

The causative agent was the stick -shaped bacillus, located in chains, which resemble fish floating one after another. The same discovery was made by the German dermatologist R. Unna - and, finally, the last causative agent of syphilis, pale spirochet, was found. Fritz Shaudin - opened it in the spring of the year together with E. Hoffmann - he discovered it when examining the drug of a solid chancra, which was supposed to contain the causative agent, not in daylight or artificial light, but against a dark background.

Only then did he see silver convincing threads and immediately realized that it was they who brought so many misfortunes to a person. Fritz Shaudin died at the age of 35, a year after his outstanding discovery. He never witnessed optimistic forecasts about an imminent victory over the pathogen of syphilis - pale spirocheta.By the end of the 19th and early XX centuries, intravenous injections were little common in clinics, in everyday practice they were almost not used.

The situation changed when Erlich found Salvarsan and put at the disposal of doctors this miraculous means to combat syphilis, which had to be introduced intravenously. But for this, Paul Erlich and his employees had to synthesize from above various organic compounds of arsenic, before they managed to find a relatively effective and low toxic substance in the year. This substance had a number, originally used as the drug “”, and later received the name “Salvarsan” from Lat.

Salvarsan, and then even more effective and less toxic non -alvarsan - the drug “” became the first drugs of the directed action. Paul Erlich proposed treating syphilis with substances that, gradually oxidizing in the body, will form active compounds of arsenic - arsenoxides. He used special organic arsenic -containing drugs - arsenobenzols, which, under the influence of oxidation, slowly turn into active molecules.

The appearance of arsenoxides in tissues in concentrations sufficient for reaction with thiol groups is disastrous for spirochet, the enzymes of which are less protected from the action of the molecules formed than the fabric. Spirochet was very sensitive to the drugs of the trivalent arsenic to the arsenites. They have high biological activity, manifested in relation, alas, of any living cells and not just spirochetes.

The discovery of Erlich Salvarsan was something brush than just a victory over the next disease of mankind, this was the birth of a new direction in medicine - chemotherapy. Erlich's work convinced many doctors what medical science, united with chemistry, can achieve. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to reduce the toxicity of arsenic drugs. Paul Erlich in the year is a Privat-toject, and since the year he is an extraordinary professor of Berlin University and at the same time works at the Robert Koch Institute.

In the year, during a laboratory experiment, Paul Erlich was infected with tuberculosis and, together with his wife, Hedviga Pinkus, who married in the year, and with two daughters went to be treated in Egypt. Instead of getting rid of one illness, he fell ill with another - diabetes. Having somewhat recovering from misfortunes, Erlich returns to Berlin in the year.