This heterocyclic aromatic chemical compound (C16H18N3SCl) was first synthesized in 1876 by the German chemist Heinrich Caro (1834–1910) at the so-called and still existing Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik (BASF, Mannheim, Germany). In 1892, Paul Guttmann and Paul Ehrlich developed from methylene blue the first fully synthetic drug in medicine and thus opened the world of modern chemotherapy using it against the tropical disease malaria. This proposed use was based on Ehrlich’s belief that if you can stain parasites with a product such as methylene blue, you can also harm them with the same (perhaps in another dosage). This methylene blue was used as antimicrobial drug even by the USA in the Second World War, although the soldiers disliked it, since it turned the urine green and the white of eyes into blue. The staining ability of living cells (intravital or supravital) was first shown in 1887 by Paul Ehrlich, when he observed that this compound is unable to enter cells in low dosages...
Keywords
- Methylene Blue
- Tropical Disease Malaria
- Heterocyclic Aromatic Chemical Compound
- Staining Ability
- Synthetic Drugs
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Further Reading
Ehrlich P (1887) Methylene blue. Biol Centralbl 6:214–218
Guttmann P, Ehrlich P (1891) Über die Wirkung des Methylenblau bei Malaria (On the effects of methylene blue on malaria). Berlin Klein Wschr 28:953–956
Meissner PE et al (2006) Methylene blue for malaria in Africa: results from a dose- finding study in combination with chloroquine. Malaria J 5:84–97
Schirmer H et al (2003) Methylene blue as an antimalarial agent – past and future. Redox Rep 8:272–276
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Mehlhorn, H. (2015). Methylene Blue. In: Mehlhorn, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parasitology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_4062-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_4062-1
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