page_title: Paul Ehrlich
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Ehrlich / Research / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: German banknote of the fourth series; with hologram Deutsch: Deutsche Banknote der vierten Serie; mit Hologramm
context_page_description: Paul Ehrlich was a Nobel prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. He is credited with finding a cure for syphilis in 1909. He invented the precursor technique to 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 capability to diagnose numerous blood diseases.
  His laboratory discovered arsphenamine, the first effective medicinal treatment for syphilis, thereby initiating and also naming the concept of chemotherapy. Ehrlich popularized the concept of a magic bullet. He also made a decisive contribution to the development of an antiserum to combat diphtheria and conceived a method for standardizing therapeutic serums.
  In 1908, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to immunology. He was the founder and first director of what is now known as the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
context_section_description: In 1910, a street was named after Ehrlich in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. During the Third Reich, Ehrlich's achievements were ignored while Emil Adolf von Behring was stylized as the ideal Aryan scientist, and the street named after Ehrlich was given another name. Shortly after the end of the war the name Paul-Ehrlich-Strasse was reinstated, and today numerous German cities have streets named after Paul Ehrlich.
  West Germany issued a postage stamp in 1954 on the 100th anniversary of the births of Paul Ehrlich (14 March 1854) and Emil von Behring (15 March 1854).
  The 200 Deutsche Mark bank note, issued until 2001, featured Paul Ehrlich.
  The German Paul Ehrlich Institute, the successor to the Steglitz Institute for Serum Research and Serum Testing and the Frankfurt Royal Institute for Experimental Therapy, was named in 1947 after its first director, Paul Ehrlich.
  His name is also borne by many schools and pharmacies, by the Paul-Ehrlich-Gesellschaft für Chemotherapie e. V. (PEG) in Frankfurt am Main, and the Paul-Ehrlich-Klinik in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe. The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is the most distinguished German award for biomedical research. A European network of PhD studies in Medicinal Chemistry has been named after him (Paul Ehrlich MedChem Euro PhD Network).
  The Anti-Defamation League awards a Paul Ehrlich–Günther K. Schwerin Human Rights Prize.
  A crater of the moon was named after Paul Ehrlich in 1970.
  Ehrlich's life and work was featured in the 1940 U.S. film Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet with Edward G. Robinson in the title role. It focused on Salvarsan (arsphenamine, "compound 606"), his cure for syphilis. Since the Nazi government was opposed to this tribute to a Jewish scientist, attempts were made to keep the film a secret in Germany.
caption: 1996 series 200 Deutsche Mark banknote
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