magic bullets

• Germs


  Cause disease
• Vaccines


  Prevent killer diseases such as rabies and Anthrax
• Usually there was no way of killing a disease after you caught it without killing the patient too
• Magic Bullet


  A chemical that could kill a germ but not the patient
• Magic Bullet


  Seeks out and kills the disease without harming anything or anyone else
• Paul Ehrlich


  • Doctor from Germany born in 1854
  • Joined Robert Cox's research team in 1889
  • Examined diphtheria
  • Saw how antibodies such as white blood cells worked in attacking the disease
  • Wanted to find a chemical which helped the antibodies by attacking the particular germs
• Sahachiro Hata


  • New scientist that joined Ehrlich's team
  • Retested several mixtures being tested as Magic Bullets
  • Found that the sixth chemical in the sixth test group, referred to as chemical 606, killed some syphilis bacteria
• Salvarsan 606


  The new medicine found by Hata that was effective against syphilis
• Salvarsan 606 was hard to administer and could be harmful to the patient if misused
• Gerhard Domagk


  • German inspired by Ehrlich's earlier work
  • Discovered prontosil, a sulfonamide antibiotic medicine, in 1932
  • Killed the germ that causes blood poisoning (streptococcus infection)
  • Tested it on his daughter who became ill from an infected needle and she recovered
• Sulfonamides


  Effective medicines but caused liver damage and were ineffective against particularly strong diseases
• The wait for effective antibiotics would only end with the development of penicillin
• Robert Koch's work


  Inspired members of his team like Paul Ehrlich and Sahachiro Hata to find so-called Magic Bullet medicines
• Magic Bullet medicines were intended to kill a specific disease by hunting out the germ and killing it without also harming the patient
• Salvarsan 606 was a dye-based medicine that killed syphilis
• Robert Koch's work was partially based upon the use of dyes to make microbes more visible
• The search for Magic Bullet medicines led to sulfonamides like prontosil developed by Gerhard Domagk
• Sulfonamides had limitations and often had harmful side effects
• The hunt for more effective antibiotic medicines like penicillin continued