Arsphenamine, also known under its trade name
Salvarsan, is a drug that was used to treat
syphilis. It was the first modern
chemotheraputic agent.
Paul Ehrlich, in his search for a magic bullet that would attack a disease causing agent, and leave human tissue untouched, found this drug (the 606th he searched) in
1909. The structure is:
It was the first important antisyphillitic, though was phased out in the 1930s by better arsenical compounds, and eventually altogether by penicillin.
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License