Paul Ehrlich coined "magic bullet" to describe drugs that target disease without harming the body. While staining samples under a microscope, he noticed the dye itself killed malaria parasites, accidentally discovering methylene blue as an antimalarial cure.
There's something spiritual about this molecule. The word magic bullet was coined by Paul Ehrlich in the late 1800s, and he was talking about a molecule that had far-reaching benefits to the body but left the body unharmed. And he discovered methylene blue works for malaria, and malaria is actually carried by a parasite. So they were looking for a cure for the parasite that carried malaria. In other, in other words, this would be the cure for malaria.. And so he sat there with his microscope and he was about to start experimenting with various molecules to see which one might— these medicines might work. And as he added the stain so that he could witness what would happen when he added the various medicines, when he added the stain, he noticed that the parasite died. And so he's like, wow, I haven't even started and I have my cure, right? Wow. So, so this is where the medical use for methylene blue was born in that moment.
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