Paul Ehrlich - Biography

Biography

Paul Ehrlich was the second child of Ismar and Rosa Ehrlich. His father was a distiller of liqueurs and the royal lottery collector in Strehelen, a town of some 5,000 inhabitants in the province of Lower Silesia, now in Poland. His grandfather Heymann Ehrlich had been a fairly well off distiller and tavern manager. Although Ismar Ehrlich was the leader of the local Jewish community, he nevertheless gave his son the Christian name “Paul”. Paul Ehrlich remained a Jew throughout life but was rather indifferent to Jewish customs and traditions.

After elementary school Paul attended the time-honored secondary school Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau, where he met Albert Neisser, who later became a professional colleague. As a schoolboy (inspired by his cousin Karl Weigert who owned one of the first microtomes), he became fascinated by the process of staining microscopic tissue substances. He retained that interest during his subsequent medical studies at the universities of Breslau, Strassburg, Freiburg im Breisgau and Leipzig, After obtaining his doctorate in 1882 he worked at the Charité in Berlin as an assistant medical director under Theodor Frerichs, the founder of experimental clinical medicine, focusing on histology, hematology and color chemistry (dyes).

He married Hedwig Pinkus (then aged 19) in 1883. The couple had two daughters, Stephanie and Marianne.

After completing his clinical education and habilitation at the Charité in Berlin in 1886, Ehrlich left Charité employment and traveled to Egypt and other countries in 1888 and 1889, one reason being to cure a case of tuberculosis, with which he had become infected in the laboratory. On his return he established a private medical practice and small laboratory in Berlin-Steglitz, and in 1891 received a call from Robert Koch to join the staff at his Berlin Institute of Infectious Diseases, where in 1896 a new institute was established for Ehrlich’s specialization, the Institute for Serum Research and Testing (Institut für Serumforschung und Serumprüfung), whose director he became.

In 1899 his institute moved to Frankfurt am Main and was renamed the Institute of Experimental Therapy (Institut für experimentelle Therapie). One of his important collaborators there was Max Neisser. In 1906 Ehrlich became the director of the Georg Speyer House in Frankfurt, a private research foundation affiliated with his institute. Here he discovered in 1909 the first drug to be targeted against a specific pathogen:, a treatment for syphilis, which was at that time one of the most lethal and infectious diseases in Europe.

Among the foreign guest scientists working with Ehrlich were two Nobel Prize winners, Henry Hallett Dale and Paul Karrer In 1914 Ehrlich signed the controversial Manifesto of the Ninety-Three which was a defense of Germany’s World War I politics and militarism.

On 17 August 1915 Ehrlich suffered a heart attack and died on 20 August. Wilhelm II the German emperor, wrote in a telegram of condolence, “I, along with the entire civilized world, mourn the death of this meritorious researcher for his great service to medical science and suffering humanity; his life’s work ensures undying fame and the gratitude of both his contemporaries and posterity”.

Paul Ehrlich was buried at the Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Straße in Frankfurt am Main (Block 114 N).