Universitätstadt Marburg

Behring in Marburg

Emil Behring arrived in Marburg in April 1895. The university town on the river Lahn had a population of 16,037 and 954 students. Before this time he had worked as an assistant to the famous Robert Koch at the Institute for Hygiene in Berlin where he developed anti-diphtherial and tetanus sera.

Behring found, in Marburg, first as a professor and later as businessman and town politician, his new place of work. In these times, when epidemics usually with high mortality threatened, he worked tirelessly on current medical problems using the innovative methods which he had developed. During his years in Marburg he was raised to the hereditary peerage and was awarded the first Nobel prize for medicine.

For the scientist and the industrialist Behring the Marburg railway station was for many years an important place. The horses whose serum was a vital component of the whole serum therapeutical research arrived here.

The Behring Route follows 12 locations in Marburg and is intended as a scientifically orientated walking experience, visiting his home and places of work and tells us of his life and activities. Additionally some of the locations are places of great natural beauty. Each of the locations focusses on a central theme but at the same time shows the context in the whole story. With the QR-code further information can be called up.

„I regard myself as a permanent citizen of Marburg.“

Behring in a letter to Erich Wernicke. 22^nd March 1899 from Capri.

Institute of Hygiene and Water Supply

On April 1^st 1895 Emil von Behring was invited to take up the Chair of Hygiene at the Philipps University. By 1896 he had already arranged that the Institute of Hygiene should be installed in the old surgical clinic in Pilgrimstein. The 2^nd and 3^rd floors were converted and additionally a serum therapy department and stabling for larger experimental animals were built. New apparatus and instruments also arrived. Behring divided his institute into two departments; one for 'hygiene' and the other for experimental therapy. This he did to separate the research from the normal daily routine. Despite additional personal Behring still had teaching responsibilities. He lectured on tubercolosis, smallpox, plague, cholera, typhus, diphtheria and tetanus in addition to „the most important diseases of our domestic animals, glanders, foot and mouth disease and rabies“.

For Behring, the practical applications of research were always important and he applied himself to the questions of water source and water supply or to disinfection in the houses of the rapidly growing town and always with the idea to reduce the impact of epidemics. This is not so surprising since Behring was an honorary town counciller and co-founder of the (later) Office of Health and played an important role in communal politics.

„The people of Marburg have become more demanding in things to do with their living quarters and are not merely content with the lovely view. The bathroom in the house is no longer an exception.

Each new house means a significant increase in water usage in the town; an increase not necessarily related to the increasing population.“

„That there could be things in the water which, when taken into the bodies of humans or animals, can lead to illness or death, is certainly not new. Always, when serious epidemics visited the land, the attention of the people turned to the drinking water supply. Earlier, however, the problem was attributed to evildoers who had poisoned the water source whereas we know today that it is caused by minute organisms which people, already sick, had introduced with their underwear, clothing, and excrement in the ground or into the water supply.“

Emil von Behring, lecture „The supply of the town of Marburg with drinking water“

7 June 1902 in Marburg.

The bust to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the introduction of serum therapy was first unveiled in 1940. The former Institute of Hygiene, Pilgrimstein 2, can be seen in the background.

Behring Private

Emil von Behring favoured direct intellectual exchange. Often, in the evenings, he would discuss current questions of scientific interest with colleagues in the study of his villa. Important was the 'Marburg Kränzchen', a disussion group with representatives from medicine, botany, zoology, physiology and other branches of the natural sciences. Above and beyond this, Behring also sought contact in the humanities such as with the theologian Wilhelm Hermann or the historian of literature Ernst Elster.

„From my own experience I can assure that in our Marburg biological 'Kränzchen' in conversation with Korschelt, Arthur Meyer, Benno Schmidt etc. there arise more new thoughts and ideas than

in a year and a day in the usual discussions with specialist colleagues ( … ).“

Letter to Ludolph Brauer, 29^th February 1912.

Behring was also a fervent reader. His private library had more than 1,300 books. There was to be found key works of philosophy, politics and the history of literature. Books on questions of cognition theory, the psychology of fashion, the 'classical' novels such as Goethe and Schiller through to novels of the 'golden period' of Russian literature were also present. The library with its variety of subjects is evidence of his passion for reading and the signs of use and wear, including much underlining and handwritten comments, indicate that reading was an intense experience for him.

The Family Behring

Emil Behring (42) and Else Spinola (20), the daughter of Elise and Bernhard Spinola, the then administrative director of the Berlin Charité, were married in Berlin on 29^th December 1896. In April 1897 they returned from a three month honeymoon in France and Italy including Capri where Behring owned a house. In July 1898 they bought and moved into a villa somewhat in the Venetian style which had been built by the surgeon Wilhelm Roser. Behring's study, classically on the first floor, was fronted by an imposing window. In 1899 a palm and greenhouse was added on the south-west side. Outside a large park-like garden supplemented the grand design.

This house should be seen as having a central place in Behring's life. Here was the middle of family life, here the six sons of the pair, Fritz, Bernhard, Hans, Kurt, Emil and Otto were born. The house was organized in the manner of that time. Else von Behring with a small team of employees

was responsible for the 'in house' activities including just who would be invited to share their table.

And, there were many guests from Germany and from outside the country as can be seen from the entries in the visitors' book. Else von Behring also busied herself with social activities in Marburg.

In both the 'Fatherland' women's organization and the sisters of the Red Cross she was active and made her mark.

The Darker Side

It is not easy to describe the personality of Emil von Behring in a few words. In addition to his strengths: intelligence, curiosity, discipline, accuracy, the ability to concentrate and prevail and a capacity to organize, were other character traits which showed another side of his personality. These    

included a tendency to overwork himself, secrecy, rudeness, even ruthlessness in his interaction with other people, frequent bouts of self-isolation and recurring deep depressions and defeatedness.

The paediatrician Otto Heubner characterized Behring as follows: „ one of the most interesting persons I have come across in my life. He was a brilliantly analytical man whose daring ideas were under an almost mathematical control. Of medium height and a soldier-like bearing (when we became aquainted he was a doctor in the army) he had reddish-brown hair. The immediate impression was of a researcher who really needed no one else. His pale eyes with a penetrating, almost a stabbing look gave him, in discussion an extremly dominating position. His whole way of thinking was far removed from any standard or traditional form and he enjoyed pointing this out. Regarding interjections however, he was not dismissive. He was always a cavalier refined in his attitudes despite his origins in not particularly elevated circles. He was the son of a teacher. What a contrast this brilliant nature makes with some other original thinkers who have never learned 'savoir vivre' or social deportment.“

Behring Mausoleum Elsenhöhe

Emil von Behring died on March 31^st 1917. On the 4^th of April, with the participation of many citizens of Marburg as well as dignitaries of the town and university he was buried in his mausoleum. Initial thoughts about its design were noted in his diary in 1911. His approval to begin with the building he signed personally in February/March 1916. Thus on the site named Elsenhöhe after his wife he found his final resting place.

The Nobel Prize for Emil von Behring

The oldest and best-known award in science is the Nobel prize. On December 10^th 1901 Emil von Behring was awarded the first Nobel prize for medicine. With the prize, Nobel wanted not only to recognize the pioneering discoveries of young researchers but also to enable them to continue with their researches in the future. Fullfilling these wishes brought some difficulties for the medicine prize committee since the relevant publications from Behring were published ten years earlier. After much deliberation it was decided that he should get the prize because of the current significance of his work.  He received the prize: „for his work on serum therapy and especially its application against diphtheria (---) through which, in the field of medical science, he made pioneering discoveries which placed in the hands of physicians a successful weapon against illness and death.“

On December 12^th 1901 Behring held his Nobel prize lecture in Stockholm. He emphasised the different forms of the therapy and on the way in which the diphtheria serum worked. Finally he spoke about his newest experiments: „I have to find for my researches room and pasture for a  considerable number of cattle; and I think that the large monetary sum coming to me can be used to demonstrate, more effectively, the possibility and the practicability of defeating bovine tubercolosis.“

In 1903 Behring acquired the Marburger Gutshof (large farm), today Brunnenstr. 16. Here was ample room for the experimental animals needed for further research. Many of his employees not only worked but also lived here.

„Stockholm on the 12.XII.01

Dearest Granny!

In this letter is an important piece of paper; 169513 Marks which I would like you to look after until my arrival in Berlin. Please confirm, by telegraph, that you have received it. Today is my lecture (---)“

Letter from Behring to his mother-in-law which obviously contained the Nobel prize cheque.

Serum Preparation and Serum Therapy

Behring, in 1896, bought a piece of land with a house on the Bunter Kitzel which ajoined another site of about 2 hectares, with stabling, which had been built in 1891. Here he had found a suitable site where his first serum bottling station could be erected. In the small stable some horses were housed which were used for serum production; then in 1914 the ground floor of the house was converted to larger stables which offered housing for more horses.The whole area including the laboratory on the Schlossberg became then part of the Behringwerke founded in 1904.

Today the house, which is protected by a conservation order, is in privat hands. 

„Blood is a very remarkable liquid“ is the last sentence of an article by Behring about his researches on diphtheria and tetanus which was published in 1890. He recognized the principle of passive immunity, the blood serum therapy. To obtain blood serum he used live animals (horses, cattle and sheep) which were injected with the killed or weakened organisms (= bacteria) causing infectious diseases. The animals produce, in their blood, anti-toxins to the bacterial 'poison'.These anti-toxins (called today; immunoglobins) retain the property of killing bacterial 'poisons' even outside the body where they had been produced. The animals' blood, freed from the cellular component and otherwise cleaned, can be injected (passive immmunization) into an infected and sick patient and the healing effect normally begins soon after. From 1894 blood serum against diphtheria was produced industrially. The first commercial partner of Behring was the dye manufacturing company Höchst. 

The impact of this serum therapy was very obvious.

Illustrated here is the reduction in the death-rate from diphtheria after the introduction of serum therapy. In the years up to 1894 between 40, & 50,000 children aged 1 – 15 years old died of diphtheria each year. After the use of serum therapy the death-rate fell drastically.