Salvarsan – the First Chemotherapeutic Compound

Early History If defined as the use of a specific compound discovered as the result of a systematic search for a cure for a specific disease, then chemotherapy is less than a century old. The first example was the introduction in 1910 by Paul Ehrlich of an organoarsenic compound he named Salvarsan, which provided the first real cure for the extremely unpleasant disease syphilis (caused by the parasitic spirochete Treponema pallidum). As is well-known, the compound was also called Ehrlich 606 because it was the 606 compound tested by Ehrlich in conjunction with his colleagues Bertheim (synthesis) and Hata (biological testing) (Figs. 1 & 2).