Ehrlich was educated at the Breslau Gymnasium
and then at the Universities of Breslau, Strassburg,
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and Leipzig. He received his doc-
torate in medicine in 1878 for his dissertation on the
theory and practice of staining animal tissues based on
the work of aniline dyes discovered by W. H. Perkin in
1853.
In 1878 Ehrlich was appointed assistant professor
at the Berlin Medical Clinic, where he continued his
work with dyes used for staining tissues, classifying
them as being basic, acid, or neutral. His work on
staining granules in blood cells laid the foundation for
future work on hematology (the study of blood and
blood-forming tissues) and in the field of staining of
tissues.
In 1882 Ehrlich published his method of staining
the tubercle bacillus that Robert Koch had discovered,
and it was this technique that later became the precur-
sor for the currently used Gram method of staining
bacteria. Ehrlich himself had a bout of tuberculosis.
Ehrlich also discovered the blood–brain barrier when
he noticed that the dyes injected into an animal brain
would not stain.
In 1899 he became director of the newly created
Royal Institute of Experimental Therapy in Frankfurt
and of the Georg-Speyer Haus, founded by Frau
Franziska Speyer for chemotherapy studies, which was
built next door to Ehrlich’s institute. It is here that he
began work on serum antitoxins and chemotherapy
and came up with the concept of the “magic bullet,” a
compound that could be made to selectively target a
disease-causing organism, killing only that organism.
His research programs were guided by his theory that
the germicidal capability of a molecule depended on its
structure, especially its side chains, which could bind to
the disease-causing organism. After many trials search-
ing hundreds of agents with the help of the nearby Cas-
sella chemical works, which donated samples of new
compounds produced in their laboratory, in 1909 he
found a cure for syphilis. The agent he identified was
arsphenamine, trade name Salvarsan (the 606th sub-
stance tested) and later Neosalvaran (the 914th sub-
stance tested). Ehrlich became one of the founders of
chemotherapy.
Ehrlich received the Tiedemann Prize of the Senck-
enberg Naturforschende Gesellschaft at Frankfurt/Main
in 1887, the Prize of Honor at the XVth International
Congress of Medicine at Lisbon in 1906, the Liebig
Medal of the German Chemical Society in 1911, and in
1914 the Cameron Prize of Edinburgh. In 1908 he
shared, with Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, the Nobel Prize in
recognition for his work on immunity.
The Prussian government elected him privy medical
counsel in 1897, to a higher rank of the counsel in
1907, and in 1911 he reached the highest rank possi-
ble, real privy counsel with the title of excellency. He
died on August 20, 1915, from a stroke.Eijkman, Christiaan (1858–1930) DutchPhysician
Christiaan Eijkman was born on August 11, 1858, at
Nijkerk in Gelderland (The Netherlands) to Christiaan
Eijkman, the headmaster of a local school, and Johan-
na Alida Pool. He received his education at his father’s
school in Zaandam. In 1875 he entered the Military
Medical School of the University of Amsterdam and
received training as a medical officer for the Nether-
lands Indies Army. From 1879 to 1881 he wrote his
thesis “On Polarization of the Nerves,” which gained
him his doctor’s degree, with honors, on July 13, 1883.
On a trip to the Indies he caught malaria and returned
to Europe in 1885.
Eijkman was director of the Geneeskundig Labora-
torium (medical laboratory) in Batavia from 1888 to
1896, and during that time he made a number of
important researches in nutritional science. In 1893 he
discovered that the cause of beriberi was a deficiency of
vitamins and not, as thought by the scientific communi-
ty, of bacterial origin. He discovered vitamin B, and
this discovery led to the whole concept of vitamins. For
this discovery he was awarded the Nobel Prize in phys-
iology or medicine for 1929.
He wrote two textbooks for his students at the
Java Medical School, one on physiology and the other
on organic chemistry.
In 1898 he became a professor of hygiene and
forensic medicine at Utrecht, but he also engaged in
problems of water supply, housing, school hygiene,
and physical education. As a member of the Gezond-
heidsraad (health council) and the Gezondheids Com-
missie (health commission), he participated in the
struggle against alcoholism and tuberculosis. He was
also the founder of the Vereeniging tot Bestrijding van
de Tuberculose (Society for the struggle against tuber-
culosis). Eijkman died in Utrecht on November 5,
1930.Eijkman, Christiaan 107