success. More significantly, the development of Salvarsan was a false lead,
as all future antibiotics (after the sulfonamides) would be “natural”
molecules gleaned from nature—from fungi or bacteria—and not
synthetically created from dyes or other simple chemical molecules. When
sophisticated chemical engineering is performed by pharmaceutical
companies in the search for a new antibiotic, it is upon naturally occurring
chemicals already being produced by living organisms.
World War I (1914–1918) introduced horrific methods of combat, and
while there were the predictable medical advances achieved from the
theater of war, there was a transitory disruption in the German
pharmaceutical industrial machine. The German biochemical revolution
was fueled by rigorous academic programs at decentralized universities, a
cultural identification with industriousness, and the creation of durable
funding that was the envy of Germany’s European neighbors.^4 There was a
grand consolidation among German chemical and dye businesses
following the conflagration, setting in motion the powerful chemical,
agricultural, and pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises. Familiar
names like Bayer, Agfa, BASF, and Hoechst combined together to form IG
Farben in 1925, resulting in the largest chemical company in the world.^5
As will be seen, the German chemical corporations involvement in World
War II was much more diabolical and vastly more damaging.
In the years leading up to World War II, the Teutonic drive for
innovation in chemistry had led to great breakthroughs in fertilizer
development, which even today accounts for half of the world’s crop
production.^6 Assembly-line manufacturing, pioneered by Henry Ford, was
fundamental to the next wave of the Industrial Revolution in the early 20th
century, but instead of making vehicles, the German research machine
would use mass production organization to tackle scientific challenges
with brute force. The testing of prospective chemical compounds was
formalized on a grand scale, exposing huge numbers of potential drugs to
various bacteria in what was described as an “endless combination game
[utilizing] scientific mass labor.”^7
Paul Ehrlich, the father of histological staining, immunology (he was
the first to grasp antibodies), and chemotherapy, died in 1915, just as
World War I was exploding. Wartime disruptions and the vacuum left after
his visionary leadership led to a lull in chemotherapy discovery. The
formation of IG Farben in 1925 and the arrival of Gerhard Domagk (1895–