Salvarsan
Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, is an antibiotic drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for the deadly infectious diseases syphilis, relapsing fever, and African trypanosomiasis. This organoarsenic compound was the first modern antimicrobial agent. History Arsphenamine was first synthesized in 1907 in Paul Ehrlich's lab by Alfred Bertheim. The antisyphilitic activity of this compound was discovered by Sahachiro Hata in 1909, during a survey of hundreds of newly synthesized organic arsenical compounds. Ehrlich had theorized that by screening many compounds, a drug could be discovered that would have anti-microbial activity but not kill the human patient. Ehrlich's team began their search for such a " magic bullet" among chemical derivatives of the dangerously toxic drug atoxyl. Arsphenamine was used to treat the disease syphilis because it is toxic to the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'', a spirochete tha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure for syphilis in 1909 and inventing an important modification of the technique for Gram staining bacteria. The methods he developed for staining tissue made it possible to distinguish between different types of blood cells, which led to the ability to diagnose numerous Hematology, blood diseases. His laboratory discovered arsphenamine (Salvarsan), the first antibiotic and first effective medicinal treatment for syphilis, thereby initiating and also naming the concept of chemotherapy. Ehrlich introduced the concept of a Magic bullet (medicine), magic bullet. He also made a decisive contribution to the development of an antiserum to combat diphtheria and conceived a method for standardising therapeutic Drug, serums. In 1908, he received the No ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neosalvarsan
Neosalvarsan is a synthetic chemotherapeutic that is an organoarsenic compound. It became available in 1912 and superseded the more toxic and less water-soluble Salvarsan as an effective treatment for syphilis. Because both of these arsenicals carried considerable risk of side effects, they were replaced for this indication by penicillin in the 1940s. Both Salvarsan and Neosalvarsan were developed in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt, Germany. Their discoveries were the result of the first organized team effort to optimize the biological activity of a lead compound through systematic chemical modifications. This scheme is the basis for most modern pharmaceutical research. Both Salvarsan and Neosalvarsan are prodrug A prodrug is a pharmacologically inactive medication or compound that, after intake, is metabolized (i.e., converted within the body) into a pharmacologically active drug. Instead of administering a drug directly, a corresponding prodrug can be ...sthat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magic Bullet (medical)
The magic bullet is a scientific concept developed by the German Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich in 1907. [Reprint of "Experimental Researches on Specific Therapy: On Immunity with special Reference to the Relationship between Distribution and Action of Antigens" from ''The Harben Lectures for 1907 of the Royal Institute of Public Health'', London: Lewis, 1908] While working at the Institute of Experimental Therapy (''Institut für experimentelle Therapie''), Ehrlich formed an idea that it could be possible to kill specific Microorganism, microbes (such as bacteria), which cause diseases in the body, without harming the body itself. He named the hypothetical agent as ''Zauberkugel,'' and used the English translation "magic bullet" in The Harben Lectures at London. The name itself is a reference to an old German myth about a bullet that cannot miss its target. Ehrlich had in mind Carl Maria von Weber's popular 1821 opera ''Der Freischütz'', in which a young hunter is required to hit an i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sahachiro Hata
was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who researched the bubonic plague under Kitasato Shibasaburō and assisted in developing the antisyphilitic drug arsphenamine in 1909 in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich. Hata received three unsuccessful nominations for the Nobel Prize, one from Swiss surgeon Emil Kocher for Chemistry in 1911 and two by Japanese colleagues Hayazo Ito and G Osawa for Physiology or Medicine in 1912 and 1913, respectively. Early life Hata was born in Tsumo Village, Shimane prefecture (now part of Masuda City) as the eighth son of the Yamane family. At the age of 14, he was adopted by the Hata family, whose male members were doctors from generation to generation. Hata completed his medical education in Okayama at the Third Higher School of Medicine (now Okayama University School of Medicine). In 1897, he became an assistant at Okayama Prefectural Hospital where he learned internal medicine from Zenjiro Inoue and biochemistry from Torasaburo Araki. Plague re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Organoarsenic Chemistry
Organoarsenic chemistry is the chemistry of compounds containing a chemical bond between arsenic and carbon. A few organoarsenic compounds, also called "organoarsenicals," are produced industrially with uses as insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. In general these applications are declining in step with growing concerns about their impact on the environment and human health. The parent compounds are arsane and arsenic acid. Despite their toxicity, organoarsenic biomolecules are well known. History 140px, Cacodyl (tetramethyldiarsine) was one of the first organoarsenic compounds. Surprising for an area now considered of minor importance, organoarsenic chemistry played a prominent role in chemistry's history. The oldest known organoarsenic compound, the foul smelling cacodyl was reported in "cacodyl" (1760) and is sometimes classified as the first synthetic organometallic compound. The compound Salvarsan was one of the first pharmaceuticals, earning a Nobel prize for Paul Ehr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atoxyl
Arsanilic acid, also known as aminophenyl arsenic acid or aminophenyl arsonic acid, is an organoarsenic compound, an amino derivative of phenylarsonic acid whose amine group is in the 4-position. A crystalline powder introduced medically in the late 19th century as Atoxyl, its sodium salt was used by injection in the early 20th century as the first organic arsenical drug, but it was soon found prohibitively toxic for human use. Arsanilic acid saw long use as a veterinary feed additive promoting growth and to prevent or treat dysentery in poultry and swine. In 2013, its approval by US government as an animal drug was voluntarily withdrawn by its sponsors. Still sometimes used in laboratories, arsanilic acid's legacy is principally through its influence on Paul Ehrlich in launching the antimicrobial chemotherapy approach to treating infectious diseases of humans. Chemistry Synthesis was first reported in 1863 by Antoine Béchamp and became the basis of the Bechamp reaction. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The primary stage classically presents with a single chancre (a firm, painless, non-itchy Ulcer_(dermatology), skin ulceration usually between 1 cm and 2 cm in diameter), though there may be multiple sores. In secondary syphilis, a diffuse rash occurs, which frequently involves the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. There may also be sores in the mouth or vagina. Latent syphilis has no symptoms and can last years. In tertiary syphilis, there are Gumma (pathology), gummas (soft, non-cancerous growths), neurological problems, or heart symptoms. Syphilis has been known as "The Great Imitator, the great imitator", because it may cause symptoms similar to many other diseases. Syphilis is most commonly spread through human sexual activi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy, treatment and antibiotic prophylaxis, prevention of such infections. They may either bactericide, kill or bacteriostatic agent, inhibit the growth of bacteria. A limited number of antibiotics also possess antiprotozoal activity. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses such as the ones which cause the common cold or influenza. Drugs which inhibit growth of viruses are termed antiviral drugs or antivirals. Antibiotics are also not effective against fungi. Drugs which inhibit growth of fungi are called antifungal drugs. Sometimes, the term ''antibiotic''—literally "opposing life", from the Greek language, Greek roots ἀντι ''anti'', "against" and βίος ''bios'', "life"—is broadly used to refer to any substance used against ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spirochete
A spirochaete () or spirochete is a member of the phylum Spirochaetota (also called Spirochaetes ), which contains distinctive diderm (double-membrane) Gram-negative bacteria, most of which have long, helically coiled (corkscrew-shaped or spiraled, hence the name) cells. Spirochaetes are chemoheterotrophic in nature, with lengths between 3 and 500 μm and diameters around 0.09 to at least 3 μm. Spirochaetes are distinguished from other bacterial phyla by the location of their flagella, called endoflagella, or periplasmic flagella, which are sometimes called ''axial filaments''. Endoflagella are anchored at each end (pole) of the bacterium within the periplasmic space (between the inner and outer membranes) where they project backwards to extend the length of the cell. These cause a twisting motion which allows the spirochaete to move. When reproducing, a spirochaete will undergo asexual transverse binary fission. Most spirochaetes are free-living and anaerob ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alfred Bertheim
Alfred Bertheim (17 April 1879 – 17 August 1914) was a German chemist, best known for his research on arsenic compounds with Paul Ehrlich. Bertheim was born in 1879 in Berlin and studied chemistry in Strasbourg and Berlin, where he gained his doctorate in 1901, with a thesis "Ueber die fluorescierende Verbindung aus Chlor-alpha-naphtochinonacetessigeste". He served as an assistant to Privy Councilor Liebermann and Professor Rosenheim in Berlin. In 1904 and 1905, he worked as a manufacturing chemist in Bitterfeld before moving to the Georg-Speyer-Haus in 1906. There, together with Paul Ehrlich, he elucidated the chemical constitution of atoxyl and synthesized innumerable arsenobenzene compounds. He was also responsible for the synthesis of Salvarsan Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, is an antibiotic drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for the deadly infectious diseases syphilis, relapsing fever, and Africa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is commonly known as quicksilver. A Heavy metal element, heavy, silvery d-block element, mercury is the only metallic element that is known to be liquid at standard temperature and pressure; the only other element that is liquid under these conditions is the halogen bromine, though metals such as caesium, gallium, and rubidium melt just above room temperature. Mercury occurs in deposits throughout the world mostly as cinnabar (mercuric sulfide). The red pigment vermilion is obtained by Mill (grinding), grinding natural cinnabar or synthetic mercuric sulfide. Exposure to mercury and mercury-containing organic compounds is toxic to the nervous system, immune system and kidneys of humans and other animals; mercury poisoning can result from exposure to water-soluble forms of mercury (such as mercuric chloride or methylmercury) either directly or through mechanisms of biomagnification. Mercu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |