In 1934, Gerhard Domagk discovered the healing effect of sulfonamides, the precedent of antibiotics. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1939. In 1943, Domagk detected the first remedy against tuberculosis, a worid-wide epidemic at that time. ** "It is easier to destroy thousands of lives than to save one." (Words by Gerhard Domagk which he wrote down shortly after the outbreak of World War II when he was kept prisoner because of the Nobel Prize.)