The Fight Against Infectious Diseases – Magic Bullets

Mr McDonald

What we will learn:

1. What progress was made in the fight by 1900.

2. The work by Paul Ehrlich3. What a magic bullet is.4. The work by Gerhard Domagk

What progress had already been made by 1900? By 1900, the germs for the most common

diseases had been discovered. The work by Pasteur and Koch had

developed a number of vaccines for the great killers.

Finally, the work already done had meant Governments had made laws to stop the spread of disease.

However, there was still work to do. There was a need for a chemical treatment to some diseases.

Paul Ehrlich One factor that helped the fight against

infectious diseases was the development of industry, in particular the work to create synthetic dyes to stain microbes under the microscopes.

Ehrlich had joined Koch’s team in 1889 and began working with Behring on the disease Diptheria.

He was fascinated by the work anti-bodies which he called MAGIC BULLETS! Seeking out the disease.

Ehrlich thought a chemical could do just the same!

Ehrlich and Magic Bullets

Ehrlich became leader of his own team.

In 1899, the team started to test chemical dyes.

Dyes were found to attack Malaria and Sleeping Sickness but it took a long time and a great deal of perseverance.

Salvarsan 606 In 1906, the syphilis microbe was found. Syphilis is sexually transmitted disease that

killed thousands every year. In 1907 Ehrlich tested arsenic compounds –

over 600 and said they were useless. All seemed to be a failure!

However in 1909, a Japanese assistant named Hata was asked to retest the compounds already thought to be useless.

He found one of the compounds had worked and not failed – CHANCE had played a key factor here!

Salvarsan 606 Ehrlich called the drug Salvarsan 606. He continued to re-testing, lots of it to avoid

any possible harmful reaction by patients. The treatment was first used in 1911 but the

treatment was not welcomed by everyone! It was painful to inject into a patient. Others believed it would mean people would

not be bothered about catching sexually transmitted disease.

It was also an arsenic based product and poison was not something doctors liked to use as a treatment.

Salvarsen 606

Ehrlich was inspired by others - Koch and

Behring

Industry

Ehrlich used synthetic dyes

made by

New Technology

Engineering created new microscopes.

Ehrlich used research teams like Koch and Pasteur.

Hata rechecked all the work again!

Gerhard Domagk Worked for a chemical firm in Germany. He was fascinated by Ehrlich’s work. He also decided to use dyes to combat

disease. In 1932 he found a dye that attacked the

germ that caused blood poisoning – PRONTOSIL.

Again a chance element made his discovery take a medicinal aspect.

Prontosil He did not know whether the

treatment would work on humans as he had only tested it on animals.

However his daughter had pricked herself and developed blood poisoning.

He gave the girl a large dose of the drug and she survived – although she turned a reddish tinge!

Sulphonamide Sulphonamides are drugs based on

chemical from coal tar. This discovery was made by a French research team.

This development was built on in 1938 by a British firm (May and Baker), they found the 693rd compound worked in fighting pneumonia. However sulphonamides had disadvantages – they could cause kidney and liver damage. The treatments also could not deal with the stronger microbes.