I chose my notable as I consider him one of the greatest medical minds of the century. He drastically improved the capabilities of contemporary medicine. His inventions and their legacy saved millions of lives, if not more. When I started researching for a notable, I was interested in him as I felt he really was "Notable'. As I learnt more about him, I felt I had certainly made the right choice. His main achievement was one of the best medical breakthroughs of the century, and to me that is quite notable. 

 

Gerhard Domagk was born on the 30th of October, 1895 in Lagow, a small town in the Brandenburg Marches, Germany. He went to school in Sommerfield, where his father was assistant headmaster. He later went to a school in Silesia, and continued onto the upper sixth form, when he started attending Kiel University, one of the most prestigious universities in Germany, as a medical student. When the First World War broke out, he enlisted in the army as a grenadier. He was wounded in December 1914, and was reassigned to the Sanitary Service, where he saw the poor conditions, lack of any real solution and low morale in the infirmaries. The first two on that list strongly influenced him for the rest of his life. He experienced this all at the formative stages of his life. The sheer lack of impact the medical staff had on deaths was immense; surgery and amputations did very little, often leading to infections such as gangrene, while most other treatments were even less effective. Such a horrible experience must have stayed with him forever, and undoubtedly influenced his later work. 

 

After the war ended he returned to Kiel and finished his studies there, having sat and completed the State Medical Test. He then underwent some laboratory work under Professors Ernest Hoppe-Seyler and Emmerich, as well as Max Bürger, on metabolism, creatin and creatinin, respectively, before becoming a guest lecturer at the University of Greifswald for Pathological Anatomy. He later took up the same post at the University of Munster. He stayed there, and became a professor on the subject. In 1924 Domagk published a paper on the defensive function of the reticuloendothelial system against infections. As a result of that paper, as well as his obvious interest in antibacterial chemicals, he was promoted to Director of research for a new I.G Farbenindustrie research laboratory. This changed his career forever, giving him time, money and resources to experiment as he wished. Indeed, he would not have discovered Prontosil without his inclusion in the I.G Farben research initiative. Around this part of his life he married Gertrud Strübe. They later had three sons and one daughter. 

 

He was given a leave of absence to work in the I.G Farben laboratory. He was assigned to a research institute for bacteriology and pathological anatomy, with the mission of testing compounds based on synthetic dyes for antibacterial properties. He was partnered with two other up-and-coming chemists, Fritz Mietzsch and Josef Klarer. Both had already found useful purposes for several dyes, such as Atabrine, a successful synthesized antimalarial discovered by Mietzsch. It was used as a substitute to Quinine, a malaria drug extracted from the cinchona tree. 

 

He made his achievement of a lifetime on 1932. His team had been investigating dye antibiotics based on the azo dyes. After some time in testing, they found a compound labelled KL 695, a substance that had low-level effects on bacterial infections in mice. After several months, the substance had been refined to an "incredible" antibacterial effect through substitutions in the chemical makeup. After 3 years of testing to make sure it was safe to an acceptable margin, I.G Farben began selling it under the brand name of Prontosil. Unfortunately, his daughter, Hildegard, had contracted a serious streptococcal infection from an unsterilized needle some time early during the testing. Out of desperation, for her illness was growing worse, Domagk gave her a dose of the then-untested Prontosil, and though she as cured within a few days, her skin was permanently given a slight reddish tinge. Domagk must have been utterly relieved, and did not mention the results of this test until after his safety results were peer-reviewed.  

 

At first the scientific community was skeptical of Domagk's incredible, almost fantastical results. It seemed too good to be true. After several peer-reviews and independent testing, his discovery was acknowledged as the medical breakthrough it was. He gained fame and fortune as the inventor of the first mass-produced antibiotic.  

 

In 1939 he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine due to his invention that had saved tens of thousands of lives since its release 4 years ago. Unfortunately, he was denied the Prize by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reichstag, who had restricted any German from receiving the Nobel Prize after a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Carl Ossietzky, a German journalist who had exposed the Nazi rearmament, and was subsequently interned in a concentration camp. The Gestapo had him arrested for a week. 

 

During the war, his antibacterial drugs obviously saved many, many lives, both on and off the battlefield. Thay could treat multiple serious diseases, injuries and infections such as meningitis, childbed fever, pneumonia, blood poisoning, gonorrhoea, burns from gas warfare, and other serious burns. Many of these conditions were found on the battlefield, and definitely helped many more people survive the war. Wounds or burns in the past that would have been fatal or at least debilitating or permanently disfiguring were rendered insignificant and not at all harmful after an injection of Prontosil. 

 

After the Second World War he (for the most part) started working on other antibacterial solutions, as Prontosil had mostly been superseded by Penicillin and derivatives of Prontosil. He discovered Quaternary Ammonium Salts, a materials cleanser effective on both bacteria and viruses still used today. It has been widely adapted and experimented with, finding a large scale use in clothes and polymers as fabric softeners, as well as anti-static agents. Some of his later research helped create the powerful tuberculosis drugs Isoniazid, widely known as reliable and strong, while he directly assisted with the creation of Neoteben and Conteben, also improved tuberculosis drugs. 

 

He focused on chemotherapy near the end of his life, educating others about the topic and studying carcinomas, which he regarded as the ultimate achievement for chemotherapy if its' threat was eliminated. He painted for recreation, as a hobby. Four years before his death, he gave his third and last lecture at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. He spoke at length about multiple diseases, and in particular, bacterial resistance to antibiotics. He explained how it was a serious problem to overcome in the development of future drugs. However, he felt that it would not be an impossible challenge, stating “I am convinced that resistance is no scary problem.”, believing that future medical workers would be able to overcome the issue. In old age he felt that mental diseases set a great malaise on humankind, and stated that if he could do it all over again, he would focus on mental diseases. This clearly shows his level of compassion for the people around him. He died on April 24th 1964 Burgberg, near Königsfeld, from appendicitis. He requested that a medical student remove it, but he failed. He was 68 years old. 

 

He received multiple honorary doctorates at many universities all over the world. The Universities of Bologna, Münster, Cordoba, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Giessen all awarded him these. He was made Knight of the Order of Merit in 1952, was awarded the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Health of Spain in 1955. Other honours and distinctions given to him were: the Paul Ehrlich Gold Medal and the Paul Ehrlich Prize, University of Frankfurt in 1956; Foreign Member of the British Academy of Science and of the Royal Society in 1959; Honorary Member of the German Dermatological Society, 1960, and the Japanese Order of Merit of the Rising Sun, 1960. 

 

I believe he is Notable because of his gift to the world. He was the father of antibiotics. His work on Prontosil, though later overshadowed by Penicillin and other later, more powerful drugs, was still their logical precursor. It set a standard for testing and quality that all antibiotics, even now, should respect and follow. He was accepted into some of the most prestigious universities in Germany, and was internationally famous all over the world when he was alive. His discoveries literally shaped the modern world. Can you imagine a world with no antibiotics? The scratch you got when you fell over on pavement could be as likely to kill you as Yersina Pestis, the bubonic plague. That's what the world was like before the advent of antibiotics. None of the treatments previously available were in any way on the same scale of Prontosil, and usually weren’t usable in rough conditions that weren’t a hospital or laboratory. But Domagk’s discoveries changed all that. From antibacterials usable in virtually any scenario to sanitizing materials still used today for sterile areas, his contributions to medicine, health, and science in general, are wide-ranging and well rounded. He genuinely cared about his fellow human beings, and dedicated much of his life to improve the lives of others. Barely any scientist at the time would not have known his name or achievements, and I feel few today wouldn’t either. Gerhard Domagk is unquestionably a famous figure, a defining person of the 20th century, and certainly a Notable.