Analogy Becomes Technology: Paul Ehrlich and the Advent of Cancer Chemotherapy

Alan I Marcus

 Analogy Becomes Technology: Paul Ehrlich and the Advent of Cancer Chemotherapy

Historians have championed the German chemist Paul Ehrlich for his pioneering efforts in chemotherapy. In particular, his work with syphilis is championed and is said to have resulted from the identification of the germ that caused the disease in 1905. Less well know is Ehrlich’s cancer chemotherapy. Patterned it part after his salvarsan, Ehrlich’s cancer work predated his syphilis studies and spawned a generation of cancer chemotherapeutic specialists.

 Ehrlich’s cancer work stemmed from his long work on creating immunity in cancer. In effect, he made an analogy between what he thought he knew—the way to produce immunity in cancer survivors--and what he did not know—how cancer might spread.  The result was efforts in Germany, England and the United States to find a drug to cure cancer.