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The Founder of Serum Therapy</h2> <p class="smalltext">Based on an exhibition at Marburg Castle<a href="#footnote">*</a><br/> Arranged and documented by <a href="cv.html">Kornelia Grundmann</a><br/> <span class="smalltext_grey">3 December 2001</span> </p> <div class="articleintro"><img src="/web/20081203131856im_/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/behring/images/behring_intro.jpg" alt="intro" width="515" height="85"/></div> <h3> Upbringing and Education</h3> <p><a href="/web/20081203131856/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1901/index.html">Emil Behring</a> (1854-1917) was born on March 15, 1854 in Hansdorf, West Prussia, as the first child of the couple August and Auguste Behring. His father was a village school teacher, who during his first marriage had had four children and after the birth of Emil had another eight children.</p> <p>A talented pupil, Emil Behring was above all assisted by the village minister, who made it possible for him to attend the Gymnasium (High School) in the village Hohenstein. His orientation as a theology student appeared to have changed after a friend who was a military doctor arranged for him to start his medical studies at the University of Berlin. He obtained a scholarship and from 1874 through 1878 he studied at the Academy for Military Doctors at the Royal Medical-Surgical Friedrich-Wilhelm-Institute, where he also earned his medical degree. In the following years he had to perform as a military doctor and also worked as a troop doctor in various garrisons. After having been assigned as captain of the medical corps to the Pharmacological Institute at the University of Bonn, he was given a position at the Hygiene Institute of Berlin in 1888 as an assistant to <a href="/web/20081203131856/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1905/index.html">Robert Koch</a> (1843-1910), one of the pioneers of bacteriology. During this time, Behring's first authoritative publication on diphtheria and tetanus serum therapy appeared.</p> <table width="153" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr> <td><img src="/web/20081203131856im_/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/behring/images/fig1.jpg" width="150" height="184" alt="Behring"/></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="caption">Emil von Behring in a military uniform.<br/> <span class="copy">Photo: Courtesy of Aventis Behring</span></td> </tr> </table> <h3><br/> The Behring Family</h3> <p>During his early years as a military doctor, Behring's income was not sufficient for him to think about starting a family. Only in 1896, when he had a regular salary, did he marry the 20 year old Else Spinola. They went on a three-month honeymoon to the island of Capri. Else, born August 30, 1876 in Berlin, was the daughter of Werner Spinola, Administrative Director of Charité, the university medical clinic in Berlin.</p> <p>In 1898, after having become professor at the University in Marburg (then part of Prussia), Behring moved with his family into a house in Wilhelm-Roser-Strasse in Marburg, where his six sons were born. Behring was a family man, though rather patriarchal, which at that time was quite normal. In the circle of his family he felt content, although his scientific work presumably did not leave him much time for his wife and children.</p> <table width="200" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr> <td><img src="/web/20081203131856im_/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/behring/images/fig2.jpg" width="200" height="249" alt="wedding photo"/></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="caption">Wedding picture of Emil and Else von Behring.<br/> <span class="copy">Photo: Courtesy of Aventis Behring</span></td> </tr> </table> <p>On March 31, 1917, Behring died and was entombed in a mausoleum at the Marburg Elsenhöhe. After Behring's death, Else von Behring served as chairwoman of the Women's National Organisation in Marburg, Germany. She died in 1936 of a heart attack at the age of only 59.</p> <br/> <h3> Family and Friends</h3> <p>On the list of his sons' godfathers, it appears obvious who stood closest to Emil von Behring besides his family. His first son, Fritz, had the bacteriologist Friedrich Loeffler (1852-1915) and Behring's friend and co-worker, Erich Wernicke as godfathers. The godfather of his third son, Hans, was the Prussian Under-Secretary of Education and Cultural Affairs, Friedrich Althoff. His fifth son, Emil, had as a godfather the Russian researcher <a href="/web/20081203131856/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1908/index.html">Elias Metschnikoff</a> (1845-1916), founder of the theory of phagocytosis, with whom Behring had continuous scientific exchange of ideas. Emil's second godfather was the pupil of Louis Pasteur, Émile Roux (1853-1933), who like Behring Sr. dealt with the fight against diphtheria. In 1913, the godfather of his sixth son, Otto, was the physician Ludolph Brauer (1865-1951), who had taught together with Behring at the Marburg Medical Faculty as a professor of internal medicine.</p> <br/> <h3> The Development of the Diphtheria-Therapeutic-Serum</h3> <p>Behring, who in the early 1890s became an assistant at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, headed by Robert Koch, started his studies with experiments on the development of a therapeutic serum. In 1890, together with his university friend Erich Wernicke, he had managed to develop the first effective therapeutic serum against diphtheria. At the same time, together with Shibasaburo Kitasato he developed an effective therapeutic serum against tetanus.</p> <table width="300" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr> <td><img src="/web/20081203131856im_/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/behring/images/fig3.jpg" width="300" height="245" alt="Behring and colleagues"/></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="caption">Behring together with his colleagues Wernicke (left) and Frosch (center) in Robert Koch's laboratory in Berlin.<br/> <span class="copy">Photo: Courtesy of Aventis Behring</span></td> </tr> </table> <p>The researchers immunized rats, guinea pigs and rabbits with attenuated forms of the infectious agents causing diphtheria and alternatively, tetanus. The sera pr