Question

when it was invented, Ehrlich's cure for syphilis was indeed a magic bullet, even if it is not considered to be one in current times.

defend this statement

Answer 1

When Paul Ehrlich discovered the cure for syphilis, a bacterial infection caused by sexual contact which initiates by a painless sore. ‘Salvarsan’ was the drug that was given the name magic bullet. He found that magic bullets would combat the bacteria without affecting the healthy cells.  He explain the formation of antitoxins or antibodies to fight the toxins released by the bacteria. Actually he was looking for the treatment of a sleeping sickness which is caused by microbe. For the treatment he found a chemical Atoxyl which was strong arsenic compound and generally considered not safe for administration. But in 1909 he he works extremely hard on 900 different arsenic compounds tested on mice, it does not go well on sleeping sickness but his colleague Sahachiro Hata went back to compound they named 606 and he found that it was effective against Syphilis. It was a great success to their work and lead a revolutionary in world for the cure of the disease. But it’s administration in the body was quite a challenging process, so later Alexander Fleming discovers a route to give it intravenously and soon it’s vaccination was made. Later Fleming’s work lead to the development of penicillin which is nowadays a most prominent drug in the pharma industry which ultimately reduces the usage of magic bullet. The statement is thus justified that when the drug Salvarsan was discovered it was a potent research in the field and considered to be most effective but later as penicillin was the drug which has more therapeutic effects leads to its less consideration in current times.