3/26/2012 - Synthesis of Arsphenamine

     At this point in time, in 1909, medicine was very limited on what cured versus what merely treating a disease, and there were many breakthroughs in this field all of the time.  A year prior to this date a man named Paul Ehrlich invented the chemotherapy method in fighting cancer through using toxic compounds.  With his knowledge of toxic material he was experimenting on what other diseases could be helped through this method and he synthesized a molecule called Arsphenamine, or also known as Salvarsan, used to treat syphilis.  It was found through synthesizing hundreds of organic arsenical compounds and testing each one.  This was also the first organic antisyphilic, meaning that before this compound was produced, syphilis was only treated with inorganic compounds such as Mercury.