Emil Adolf von Behring was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
physiologist who received the 1901
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
, the first one so awarded.
Biography
Behring was born
Adolf Emil Behring in Hansdorf (now Ławice, Iława County), Kreis Rosenberg,
Province of PrussiaThe Province of Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1829-1878 created out of the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia....
.
Between 1874 and 1878 he studied
medicineMedicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the Akademie für das militärärztliche Bildungswesen,
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He was mainly a military doctor and then became Professor of Hygienics within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Marburg (against the initial strenuous opposition of the faculty council), a position he would hold for the rest of his life. He and the pharmacologist
Hans Horst MeyerHans Horst Meyer was a German pharmacologist. He studied medicine and did research in pharmacology. The Meyer-Overton hypothesis on the mode of action on general anaesthetics is partially named after him...
had their laboratories in the same building, and Behring stimulated Meyer's interest in the mode of action of tetanus toxin.
Behring was the discoverer of
diphtheriaDiphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
antitoxinAn antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacteria. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, they can kill bacteria and other microorganisms. Antitoxins are made within organisms, but can be...
in 1890 and attained a great reputation by that means and by his contributions to the study of immunity. He won the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901 for developing a
serum therapyAntiserum is blood serum containing polyclonal antibodies. Antiserum is used to pass on passive immunity to many diseases. Passive antibody transfusion from a previous human survivor is the only known effective treatment for Ebola infection .The most common use of antiserum in humans is as...
against
diphtheriaDiphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
(this was helped by
Kitasato ShibasaburoBaron was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin.-Biography:...
and worked on with Emile Roux) and
tetanusTetanus is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, rod-shaped, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani...
. The former had been a scourge of the population, especially children, whereas the other was a leading cause of death in wars, killing the wounded. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1902. At the International Tuberculosis Congress in 1905 he announced that he had discovered "a substance proceeding from the virus of tuberculosis." This substance, which he designated "T C", plays the important part in the immunizing action of Professor Behring's "bovivaccine", which prevents
bovineThe biological subfamily Bovinae includes a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large sized ungulates, including domestic cattle, the bison, African buffalo, the water buffalo, the yak, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes...
tuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. He tried unsuccessfully to obtain a protective and therapeutic agent for humans.
Behring demonstrated that the injection of toxins was able to be transmitted to another animal by injections of a treated animal's blood serum and used as a means of effecting a cure.
Behring died at
MarburgMarburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, Hessen-Nassau, on 31 March 1917. His name survives in
Dade BehringDade Behring was a company which manufactured testing machinery and supplies for the medical diagnostics industry, based in Deerfield, Illinois and Glasgow, Delaware .- 1997 :...
, the world's largest company dedicated solely to clinical diagnostics, in
CSL BehringCSL Behring is one of the world's leading plasma protein biotherapeutics companies, specializing in the manufacture of therapies for the treatment of rare and serious diseases...
a manufacturer of plasma-derived biotherapies, in Behringwerke AG in Marburg, in
NovartisNovartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...
Behring and in the Emil von Behring Prize of the University of Marburg, the highest endowed medicine award in Germany.
His
Nobel Prize medalThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, is now kept on display at the
International Red Cross and Red Crescent MuseumThe International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human...
in
GenevaGeneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
Controversy
Von Behring is believed to have cheated
Paul EhrlichPaul Ehrlich was a German scientist in the fields of hematology, immunology, and chemotherapy, and Nobel laureate. He is noted for curing syphilis and for his research in autoimmunity, calling it "horror autotoxicus"...
out of recognition and financial reward in relation to collaborative research in diphtheria. The two men developed a diphtheria serum by repeatedly injecting the deadly toxin into a horse. The serum was used effectively during an epidemic in Germany. A chemical company preparing to undertake commercial production and marketing of the diphtheria serum offered a contract to both men, but von Behring maneuvered a way to claim all the considerable financial rewards for himself. To add insult to injury, only von Behring received the first Nobel Prize in Medicine, in 1901, for his contributions.
Interesting Facts
In 1897 Behring and Spinolla Elsa (a daughter of a doctor in Berlin) held their honeymoon at villa "Spinola" (now "Behring") on Capri. In 1909-1911 the famous Russian writer
Maxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
lived at this villa.
Publications
- Die Blutserumtherapie (1892)
- Die Geschichte der Diphtherie (1893)
- Bekämpfung der Infektionskrankheiten (1894)
- Beiträge zur experimentellen Therapie (1906)
External links