Magic ball

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Kit for making Salvarsan , circa 1909–1912

In medicine, magic ball refers to a medicinal substance that kills a microbe in humans without harming humans.

properties

The name is an analogy to a bullet that only hits a specific target. The theory of the medical magic ball was developed in 1900 by the later Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich . At this point, specific biocides for most infectious diseases were not available. The theory led to the development of the first effective treatment method for syphilis with the drug Salvarsan in 1909 and subsequently to the more general concept of therapy with antimicrobial substances .

"We have to learn to aim chemically"

- Paul Ehrlich

From 1896 Ehrlich worked with Shibasaburo Kitasato , the discoverer of Clostridium tetani as the causative agent of tetanus , and with Emil von Behring , who discovered the diphtheria antitoxin and received the first Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for it in 1901 . Ehrlich was also nominated. Ehrlich's first research into a magic ball was aimed at antibodies . He observed that sometimes antibodies are insufficient to kill a microbe. This prompted him to subsequently reject this hypothesis. In 1899 Ehrlich moved to the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt a. M. and became its director in 1906. His research there initially focused on arsenic compounds and dyes as antimicrobial drugs. Since arsenic was notorious in public at that time due to poisoning , Ehrlich was also known as “Dr. Phantasus ”.

From 1901, Ehrlich and Kiyoshi Shiga investigated hundreds of dyes in mice infected with Trypanosoma equinum , which causes Mal de Caderas disease in solipeds , or with Trypanosoma brucei , which causes Nagana . With Nagana red they had their first laboratory successes with a dye for the treatment of trypanosomal infections . Trypan is an additional sulfonic more water-soluble groups derivative of Naganarots, which starting from 1904 for the treatment of African sleeping sickness was used. From 1905 he investigated various dyes on rabbits that were infected with Treponema pallidum , the causative agent of syphilis. Salvarsan was the 606th arsenic compound studied in Ehrlich's laboratory for the treatment of syphilis.

Ehrlich coined the English term “magic bullet” in 1908 during the Harben Lecture in London. In the same year he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology with Ilya Ilyich Metschnikow .

literature

  • C. Gradmann: Magic bullets and moving targets: antibiotic resistance and experimental chemotherapy, 1900-1940. In: Dynamis. Volume 31, Number 2, 2011, pp. 305-321, PMID 22332461 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ P. Valent, B. Groner, U. Schumacher, G. Superti-Furga, M. Busslinger, R. Kralovics, C. Zielinski, JM Penninger, D. Kerjaschki, G. Stingl, JS Smolen, R. Valenta, H. Lassmann, H. Kovar, U. Jäger, G. Kornek, M. Müller, F. Sörgel: Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) and His Contributions to the Foundation and Birth of Translational Medicine. In: Journal of innate immunity. Volume 8, number 2, 2016, pp. 111-120, doi : 10.1159 / 000443526 , PMID 26845587 .
  2. ^ A b c S. Y. Tan, S. Grimes: Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915): man with the magic bullet. In: Singapore medical journal. Volume 51, Number 11, November 2010, pp. 842-843, PMID 21140107 .
  3. ↑ a b c F. Heynick: The original 'magic bullet' is 100 years old - extra. In: The British journal of psychiatry: the journal of mental science. Volume 195, number 5, November 2009, p. 456, doi : 10.1192 / bjp.195.5.456 , PMID 19880937 .
  4. ↑ a b K. J. Williams: The introduction of 'chemotherapy' using arsphenamine - the first magic bullet. In: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Volume 102, number 8, August 2009, pp. 343-348, doi : 10.1258 / jrsm.2009.09k036 , PMID 19679737 , PMC 2726818 (free full text).
  5. ↑ K. Strebhardt, A. Ullrich: Paul Ehrlich's magic bullet concept: 100 years of progress. In: Nature Reviews Cancer . Volume 8, number 6, 06 2008, pp. 473-480, doi : 10.1038 / nrc2394 , PMID 18469827 .
  6. ↑ Lilian Chuaire, Juan Fernando Cediel: Paul Ehrlich: From magic bullets to chemotherapy . In: Colombia Médica . 39, No. 3, 2009, p. Online.
  7. ↑ Kelly Nigel, Bob Rees, Paul Shuter: Medicine Through Time , 2nd. Edition, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford (UK) 2002, ISBN 978-0-435-30841-4 , pp. 90-92.
  8. ^ Paul Ehrlich: Chemotherapeutic Trypanosome Studies. In: Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift . Vol. 44, 1907, pp. 233-236. ( PDF ).
  9. ↑ W. Sneader: Drug discovery: a history . John Wiley, Chichester 2005, ISBN 9780471899792 .
  10. ↑ RS Schwartz: Paul Ehrlich's magic bullets. In: The New England Journal of Medicine . Volume 350, Number 11, March 2004, pp. 1079-1080, doi : 10.1056 / NEJMp048021 , PMID 15014180 .