Introduction

Behring, Emil Adolf von (Hansdorf, West Prussia, March 15, 1854 - Marburg, Germany, March 31, 1917 ). German physician and microbiologist. Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria. Emil von Behring came from the family of a schoolmaster. He was the eldest of 13 children. He began his studies in the field of microbiology at a time when scientists were enthusiastically pursuing research in this new area because of the realization that many diseases were of bacterial origin. Behring started out as an assistant of Robert Koch and he is associated with the demonstration that the blood of an infected individual contained antitoxins capable of neutralizing bacterial toxins. These studies were conducted along with the Japanese researcher Shibasaburo Kitasato, who was a member of Koch's team. One of their first important successes was the development of a serum for the treatment of diphtheria, a paralysing respiratory disease responsible for many infant deaths at the time. The first anti - diphtheria vaccine was successfully tested out on a sick child on Christmas night 1891. The work of Behring and his co - workers led the way for serotherapy as well as the development of more efficient diptheria vaccines later by Paul Erlich, another colleague of Koch. In 1895 Adolf von Behring became Professor at the University of Marburg. He was interested in combatting tuberculosis and, along with his co - workers, contributed to the successful immunisation of cattle against this disease.