DEFENDING THE BODY FROM WITHIN

EHRLICH - DRUG SYNTHESIS

Drugs are directed not against the cause of disease but against the symptoms... . Therapeutics are chiefly symptomatic...even...today.
- Paul Ehrlich, 1908

Early in the 20th century, a German bacteriologist named Paul Ehrlich embarked on a different approach to drug therapy. He developed the first synthetic chemical to be used to kill the pathogen that caused an infectious disease. The drug he developed was arsphenamine (later marketed under the name Salversan). It was effective — though with significant toxic side effects — against syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that had became widespread.

Ehrlich developed 605 compounds before hitting upon arsphenamine. His relentless pursuit of a chemical cure for syphilis was inspired by his observation that cells absorb chemical stains in varying degrees. Ehrlich wanted to see whether and how differing affinities for chemicals might be put to practical purposes, and selected syphilis — caused by Treponema pallidum — as a test case.

Ehrlich also pioneered in the field of immunology and was one of the first to address the question of how antibodies are formed.

T. pallidum. T. pallidum.— the organism that causes syphilis — is a spirochete, a genus of bacteria known by its distinctive corkscrew shape. Syphilis may well be the only disease that is named from a poem. In 1530, Girolamo Fracastoro's poem depicted an angry Sun unleashing deadly rays of disease. A shepherd named Syphilus was the first to suffer from the unknown pestilence, for whom it was named, before passing it on to mankind.

Sulpharsphenamine — later version of Salversan.

It was a pestilence...evil, sordid, cruel to excess and very contagious. It was terrible and impossible to conquer.
- Francisco Villalobos, Spanish physician describing syphilis, 16th century