Ehrlich, Paul

Ehrlich, Paul poul ārˈlĭkh [key], 1854–1915, German bacteriologist. He directed (1896) an institute for serum research at Steglitz, near Berlin, that was transferred (1899) to Frankfurt-am-Main as the Institute for Experimental Therapy. For his work in immunology he shared with Élie Metchnikoff the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He made valuable contributions also in hematology, in cellular pathology, in the use of dyes in microscopy and in the treatment of disease, in the study of cancer, and in his discovery of salvarsan (or “606,” so called from its numerical order in his experimental series) and of neosalvarsan (less toxic than salvarsan) for the treatment of syphilis.

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