Alfred Bertheim

Alfred Bertheim (born April 17, 1879 in Berlin ; † August 17, 1945 ibid) was a German chemist who, as an employee of Paul Ehrlich, contributed significantly to the elucidation of the chemical structure of atoxyl and to the development of arsphenamine (Salvarsan) as a chemotherapeutic agent.

Bertheim studied chemistry in Berlin and Strasbourg and received his doctorate in Berlin in 1901. He worked as an industrial chemist in 1904/05 (Chemische Werke S. Herz in Bitterfeld). From November 1905 until the outbreak of the First World War he was Paul Ehrlich's assistant. From 1906 he was with Ehrlich at the then newly founded Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt. In February 1914 he became a scientific member of the Georg-Speyer-Haus at the suggestion of Ehrlich. He volunteered at the beginning of the First World War and died shortly afterwards in an accident on August 17, 1914 in Berlin.

Ehrlich initially considered Salvarsan (or his starting point atoxyl ) to be an anilide , only in collaboration with Bertheim did he recognize the true structure ( arsenic acid derivative). The elucidation of the nature of the atoxyl was of essential importance for the further procedure in the variation of the chemical structure in the search for a chemotherapeutic agent. Bertheim synthesized numerous derivatives under Ehrlich, including Salvarsan (compound no. 606).

Fonts

• Handbook of Organic Arsenic Compounds, F. Enke 1913

literature

• Steven Riethmiller: Erlich, Bertheim and Atoxyl: The Origins of Modern Chemotherapy , Bull. Hist. Chem., Vol. 23, 1999, pp. 28-33
• Simon Götz: Bertheim, Alfred , Frankfurter Personenlexikon (online edition), 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to Steven Riethmiller, who examined the laboratory books. In Erlich's biography by his former secretary Martha Marquardt, and in a film based on this model, it was presented quite differently.