EHRLICH, Paul.

Berlin: August Hirschwald, .1885

8vo, 2 leaves, 167 pages. Original green cloth, spine slightly worn at ends, inner hinge cracked, library stamp on front endpaper and title, label removed from endpaper, shelf mark on upper cover.

FIRST EDITION. G&M 2540. “In 1885 a remarkable monograph...reporting his investigations into the distribution of oxygen in animal tissues and organs gained widespread attention from medical scientists. Using two vital-staining dyes,...he demonstrated that while living protoplasm in general has potent reducing properties, bodily organs are classifiable into three categories according to their oxygen avidity... Two years later the monograph won the Tiedemann Prize...” (DSB). This book, Ehrlich’s first monograph, also includes the first statement of his side-chain theory, which postulated two different chemical groups in the diphtheria toxin molecule, and their functions.

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