- in 1927 to Bayer set the stage for a muscular approach in the quest
for a true antibacterial medicine. “If Ehrlich had tested dozens of different
recipes in order to find the antisyphilis treatment, Bayer would try
hundreds. Or thousands.”^8 In a foreshadowing of the petrochemical
polymer industry, Bayer chemists began producing thousands of chemical
compounds from coal tar, the thick liquid that is a by-product of the
production of coke and coal gas from coal.
Domagk, as a pathologist and bacteriologist, had gained a specialized
understanding of the microbial enemy (including being a wounded soldier
in World War I), and was critical in constructing the experimental
framework, having identified a particularly virulent strain of Streptococci
(Gram-positive cocci which links in twisted chains). Streptococcus, the
pathogen famous for throat infections, pneumonia, meningitis, and
necrotizing fasciitis, was an ideal test bacterium, not only because it was
common, but because it killed laboratory animals so terrifyingly
efficiently. Domagk, like his famous German predecessor Robert Koch,
intentionally infected laboratory white mice with his test bacteria.
Thousands of diseased mice died over the first few years of the project,
helplessly succumbing to Strep despite being injected with myriad coal-tar
derivatives from the Bayer chemists.
Trudging along, as science demands, the scientists continued tinkering
with the azo dyes, chemically modifying the compounds with the addition
of chlorine atoms, then arsenic, then iodine. Years of failure and almost no
hope demanded a resiliency that was perhaps battle born, but a
breakthrough did finally occur in 1932, when the team began linking the
azo dyes with a sulfa-based molecule. The protocol that he had practiced
for years yielded a monotonous outcome: injecting live Strep cultures into
the abdomen of a mouse would result in death within a day or two. But in
late 1932, outside Düsseldorf, Germany, twelve mice were administered a
new drug—an azo dye amalgamated with sulfanilamide—shortly after
being injected with the deadly bacteria. Concurrently, fourteen mice were
injected with the same bacteria but were not given any medicine. All
fourteen of these control animals were dead within days, while all twelve
that had received the new compound, KL-730, had lived. The Bayer
scientists had stubbornly forged ahead as the carcasses of rodents piled up,
but in 1932, the world’s first antibacterial magic bullet had finally been
crafted.