Emil von Behring 1854–1917

Emil von Behring: scientist, entrepreneur, Nobel Prize winner – and a contradictory

personality...

Emil von Behring (1854–1917) became famous as the inventor of vaccines against diphtheria and tetanus. The press celebrated him as the ›savior of children and soldiers‹. In 1901, he received the first Nobel Prize for Medicine. Using previously undiscovered sources, Ulrike Enke draws a nuanced portrait of the physician and immunologist beyond all heroization.
Behring grew up in poverty; it was only due to a scholarship that he was able to study medicine. His intelligence, his ambition, and not a least his ability to establish useful networks furthered his enormous social advancement. Enke shows a person, admired as an analytical mastermind and feared as a negotiator. A new picture unfolds of a man and pioneering researcher who is still remembered today as the founder of the Behringwerke in Marburg.