The German Genius

was so small, the spirochaete was clearly the syphilis microbe, and it was labeled Treponema (it resembled a twisted thread) pallidum (a reference to its pale color). The discoveries owed much to the invention of the ultramicroscope in 1906 by the German chemist Richard Zsigmondy at the Schott Glass Manufacturing Company, which provided specialized glass for Zeiss (see Chapter 18). These advances meant the spirochaete was now easier to experiment on than Schaudinn had predicted, and before the year was out a diagnostic test had been identified by August Wasserman. It followed that syphilis could now be identified early, which helped prevent its spread. A cure was still needed.
    The man who found it was Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915). Born in Strehlen, Upper Silesia, he had an intimate experience of infectious diseases: while studying tuberculosis as a young doctor, he had contracted the disease and been forced to convalesce in Egypt. His crucial observation was that, as one bacillus after another was discovered, associated with different diseases, the cells that had been infected also varied in their response to staining techniques. Clearly, the biochemistry of these cells was affected according to the bacillus that had been introduced. This deduction gave Ehrlich the idea of the antitoxin—what he called the “magic bullet”—a special substance secreted by the body to counteract invasions.
    By 1907 Ehrlich had produced no fewer than 606 different substances or “magic bullets” designed to counteract a variety of diseases. Most of them worked no magic at all, but “Preparation 606” was found to be effective by a Japanese assistant, Dr. Sachahiro Hata, from Tokyo. Ehrlich called this magic bullet Salvarsan, which had the chemical name of asphenamine. He had in effect discovered the principle of both antibiotics and the human immune response. He went on to identify what antitoxins he could, to manufacture them, and to employ them in patients via the principle of inoculation. Besides syphilis he continued to work on tuberculosis and diphtheria, and in 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on immunity. 20
    T HREE F OOTNOTES : T HE D ISCOVERY AND R EDISCOVERY OF THE G ENE
     
    Even after all this time, the coincidence in the rediscovery of the work of the botanist-monk Gregor Mendel makes for moving reading. Between October 1899 and March 1900, three other botanists—two Germans (Carl Correns and Erich Tschermak) and the Dutchman Hugo de Vries—published papers about plant biology, each of which (in a footnote) referred to Mendel’s priority in discovering the principles of what we now call genetics. Thanks to this coincidence, and their scrupulousness in acknowledging his achievement, Mendel—once forgotten—is now a household name. 21
    Johann Mendel was born in 1822 in Heinzendorf in what was then Austria and is now Hyncice in the Czech Republic. His father was a farmer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and his mother was from a family of gardeners, meaning their whole life was dominated by plants—arable land, orchards, forest. In 1843, he entered the Augustinian monastery in Brno (Brünn), where he adopted the name Gregor. Mendel had no real Christian vocation, but the environment freed him economically and gave him peace of mind to pursue his studies. The abbot of the monastery was much concerned with the improvement of agriculture and had established an experimental monastery garden, where the director, Matthew Klácel, was interested in variation, heredity, and evolution in plants. He favored the Hegelian philosophy of gradual development, an approach that contradicted Christian orthodoxy and led to his dismissal and immigration to America, after which Mendel took over. 22
    Mendel was too sensitive for pastoral work (he was frequently disturbed by the suffering he saw among the poor). Instead, he was dispatched to the University of Vienna to expand his intellectual horizons. 23 In Vienna he was taught experimental physics by Christian Doppler (identifier of the “Doppler effect”) and by Andreas von Ettingshausen, the statistician. This proved important for Mendel’s ideas about plant breeding. He also studied with Franz Unger, known for his views on evolution and lectures stressing sexual generation as the basis of the great variety in cultured plants. Unger argued that new plant forms evolved by the combination of certain elements within the cell, though he was unclear as to