Five Quarts_ A Personal and Natural History of Blood - Bill Hayes [50]
In the year following his Nobel Prize, Ehrlich did indeed create the world’s first magic bullet when he invented an effective cure for the most hideous plague of his day, syphilis, the sexually transmitted, blood-borne disease that, for centuries, had been as stigmatizing as AIDS would one day become. He formulated an injectable arsenic-based drug that was later called Salvarsan by the German manufacturer. (Salvarsan would eventually be replaced by penicillin as the first-line syphilis treatment.) Ehrlich’s original name for the medication was “606,” for the simple fact that it was the six hundred sixth preparation he had tested, the number also quietly acknowledging his sheer persistence even after 605 failures. While the discovery made Ehrlich world famous, it also marked the beginning of a new set of difficulties, placing the scientist at the center of an ethical debate. From one camp, Ehrlich was vilified for his willingness to save “immoral” people who, some believed, deserved to die. And from another, he was held personally responsible for the drug’s adverse side effects, including numerous fatalities, most of which resulted from doctors’ errors—incorrect dosing and poor administering. In reality, the magic bullet was not magic for all. Produced as a powder that had to be carefully measured then dissolved in sterile water prior to each intravenous injection, Salvarsan was also difficult to manufacture. Ehrlich, in an effort to minimize the risks, had taken the extraordinary step of patenting Salvarsan (one of the world’s first therapeutic drug patents), not for personal gain—in fact, he never directly profited from the drug—but to enforce a consistent quality in its production. What made this whirl of difficulties bearable, he later confessed, was the first postcard he received from a cured patient.
Twenty-five years after his death in 1915, the doctor’s life story was dramatized—no, make that melodramatized—in a Warner Bros. film, Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, starring Edward G. Robinson in the title role. Hollywood—and hindsight—treated him kindly. The 1940 movie, with an Academy Award–nominated screenplay by John Huston, is notable for being the first to address the taboo subject of syphilis. Ehrlich is presented as a selfless, courageous German Jewish doctor with an American accent to set him apart, I presume, from the vaguely anti-Semitic government bureaucrats, all of whom have heavy German accents. (This reflected the politics of World War II more than the reality he’d faced.) Robinson, best known for portraying gangsters, gives Ehrlich a saintly aura, culminating in the near apotheosis of his deathbed scene. Looking and sounding robust—though the funereal piano score leaves no doubt whatsoever that he’s about to kick the bucket—Robinson-as-Ehrlich summons his scientific disciples to his bedside: “The magic bullet will cure thousands,” he tells them. “But there can be no final victory over diseases of the body unless the diseases of the soul are also overcome.” A pause and a benevolent smile as the master musters his final strength. “We must fight them in life as we fought syphilis in the laboratory. We must fight! Fight! We must never, never stop fighting!” His eyes close as violins swell above the piano, then bells ring as if signaling Ehrlich’s entrance into heaven. And the screen goes black.
By all published accounts, Paul Ehrlich’s real life did lend itself to this kind of glorification. Most glowing of these works is a memoir written by Martha Marquardt, who served as the doctor’s devoted secretary during his final thirteen years. (Her loyalty to the man continued long past his death, as it turned out. At the risk