1891

Koch publishes paper on tuberculin; Behring & Kitasato publish paper on tetanus toxin/antitoxin (launching science of serology); Behring publishes paper on diphtheria antitoxin (Brock, 223-227). Ehrlich and associate report first successful application of his “staining” principle (viz, that a chemical, in combining with a microorganism, would destroy it) in treatment of malaria with methylene blue (Dowling, 93). Diphtheria antitoxin, commercially available in 1894 following Emile Roux’s production of antitoxin in horses at Pasteur Institute, marks inauguration of era of specific immunotherapy (Morantz-Sanchez, 235-236; Liebenau, 50-51) and deals a decisive blow to antivivisectionist movement (Ritvo, 162). Metchnikoff publishes Lectures on the Comparative Pathology of Inflammation to refute critics’ charges of teleology and vitalism, that phagocytosis theory imputed psychical activity to the leukocyte. Metchnikoff embraced the latter charge as an evolutionary process, seeing host defense as a byproduct of the digestive process of unicellular organisms (Tauber & Chernyak, 158; Silverstein, 47). Paul Ehrlich closed his private laboratory in order to work with Koch at the Institute for Infectious Diseases; Koch appointed him director of the Moabit Hospital’s tuberculosis department, where Koch’s “tuberculin” was being tested (Bäumler, 47-50).