1909

In May, Ehrlich’s colleague Bertheim produces Preparation 606, an arsenic compound, later known as Salvarsan, first found effective with chicken spirillosis and the spirilla of relapsing fever (febris recurrens) (Bäumler, 147-149), and subsequently tested and found effective with the spirochetes of syphilis. The historic experiment with rabbits infected with syphilis was conducted on 8 June 1909 (Bäumler, 150ff.) Salvarsan was produced in quantity by Farbwerke Hoechst and released to the market in mid-December, 1910. Hoechst and Ehrlich supplied 60,000 samples to doctors free of charge (180). In Britain, Almroth Wright, a personal friend of Ehrlich, was among the first to receive a supply of Salvarsan; he passed it on to Alexander Fleming to try out on syphilitic patients: “It had to be injected into a vein, and Fleming was adept at such injections. With his neat, deft fingers, and a virtual monopoly of the drug itself, he attracted patients from all over London and . . . soon found himself with a flourishing private practice” (Macfarlane, 72). In 1911, combination of Salvarsan with sodium phenolate gave birth to Neosalvarsan, with twice the curative effect of Salvarsan and better tolerated by patients (Bäumler, 181).