Paul Ehrlich

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.