The work of Paul Ehrlich and his position in the history of medical research / [T.S. Work].

  • Work, T. S. (Thomas Spence)
Date:
1954
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The work of Paul Ehrlich and his position in the history of medical research / [T.S. Work]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the wide field thus covered, a single thread of thought runs through his entire life work. It is best expressed in his own words. “I have been more and more forcibly impressed with the idea that in a study of the fundamental biological phenomena, the significance of morphological structure is far less than the significance of the chemistry involved. It is obvious that in order to effect a given chemical process certain mechanical conditions must be fulfilled. In other words the production of any chemical action necessitates the presence and the suitable arrangement of apparatus. The essen¬ tial feature, however, is neither apparatus nor form, but the con¬ stituents involved; for without changing the apparatus hundreds of different combinations can be effected according to the components employed. Similarly in biology I believe that the morphological arrangement of the organs and cells is not the essential feature but that this is rather to be sought for in chemical differences of the constituents”. It was a fortunate chance that Ehrlich?s cousin and close friend Carl Weigert was particularly interested in the new aniline dyes so that during the formative period of Ehrlich's medical education he was introduced to the chemistry of these dyes and advised to study under Cohnheim and Heidenhain. Here he had to learn for his “Physi- kum” a considerable amount of chemistry and as a result became both interested and proficient in the subject. Ehrlich's own com¬ ment on this training was “I really believe that my talents lie in the field of chemistry; I can picture the chemical formulae in my mental vision and I believe that this fact has been of the greatest value to me in my studies”. It was this capacity for visualization of chemical events which was to be of such value to Ehrlich in his formulation of theories as to the mode of action of dyes, drugs and toxins. First Period: Researches on Dyes In his first three papers (1877-1879) Ehrlich made a systematic study of the staining properties of aniline dyes. He was the first to recognize that dyes fall into two groups, acidic and basic which are distinct both chemically and histologically. He showed the differ¬ ence between acidophile and basophile leucocytes and showed that structures which could not be stained with either acidic or basic dyes could be stained with “neutral” stains such as rosaniline picrate. Three years later in 1882 he introduced the principle of