Paul Ehrlich

@Scientists, Family and Childhood

Paul Ehrlich was a Nobel Prize winning German scientist who invented the medicine to cure syphilis and diphtheria

Mar 14, 1854

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: March 14, 1854
  • Died on: August 20, 1915
  • Nationality: German
  • Famous: Scientists, Medical Scientists
  • Universities:
    • Leipzig University
    • University of Wrocław
  • Birth Place: Strzelin
  • Religion: Judaism

Paul Ehrlich born at

Strzelin

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Birth Place

In 1883, Paul Ehrlich married Hedwig Pinkus and together they had two children, Stephanie and Marianne.

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Personal Life

Paul Ehrlich died on August 20, 1915, in Bad Homburg, Hesse, in Germany. He was laid to rest in Frankfurt-am-Main's Jewish cemetery. His tombstone is a tourist destination for scientists even today.

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Personal Life

In 1940, the American government made a training film about Ehrlich's work, which was ruled an official secret in Nazi Germany.

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Personal Life

Paul Ehrlich was born on March 14, 1854 in Strehlen, Lower Silesia, the German Kingdom of Prussia. Paul's father was Ismar Ehrlich and his mother was Rosa. Paul's father was a liquor distiller and lottery collector.

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Childhood & Early Life

Paul attended secondary school in Breslau and then studied medicine and biology at several different universities, including: Breslau, Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Leipzig. Even as a child, he was fascinated with staining microscopic tissue samples after learning about the process from his mother's nephew, Karl Weigert.

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Childhood & Early Life

As Ehrlich continued his experiments in cellular staining, he determined that chemicals could be used to heal and protect the body on the cellular level, an amazing breakthrough in scientific thinking.

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Career

In 1878, he was awarded a doctorate in Medicine from the ‘University of Leipzig’. He then was hired as the head physician at a major hospital in Berlin.

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Career

At the hospital, he invented a new way to stain tissue samples that allowed doctors to see and identify the tuberculosis bacillus for the first time. Also at the hospital, he began using methylene blue to successfully treat neurological disorders suffered by his patients.

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Career

Starting in 1879, and continuing through 1885, Ehrlich published 37 different scientific papers on cellular biology. The last, 'The Requirement of the Organism for Oxygen', was his magnum opus on understanding how cells process oxygen, a vital function of mammalian biology.

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Career

In 1886, he successfully completed his in-house clinical and academic training at the Charite medical school and teaching hospital in Berlin. He then traveled to Egypt to continue independent studies in the field of virology.

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Career

Paul was one of the leading scientists who discovered the first successful cure for syphilis. The drug ‘Arsphenamine’ was the first ever agent used in chemotherapy; thus Ehrlich essentially pioneered the procedure that is widely used in the treatment of several diseases including cancer.

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Major Works