quality:correction
The term chemotherapy

The word chemotherapy without a modifier usually refers to cancer treatment, but its historical meaning was broader. The term was coined in the early 1900s by Paul Ehrlich as meaning any use of chemicals to treat any disease (chemo - + -therapy), such as the use of antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy). Ehrlich was not optimistic that effective chemotherapy drugs would be found for the treatment of cancer. The first modern chemotherapeutic agent was arsphenamine, an arsenic compound discovered in 1907 and used to treat syphilis. This was later followed by sulfonamides (sulfa drugs) and penicillin. In today's usage, the sense "any treatment of disease with drugs" is often expressed with the word pharmacotherapy. In terms of metaphorical language, 'chemotherapy' can be paralleled with the idea of a 'storm', as both can cause distress but afterwards may have a healing/cleaning effect.