NOTES 309 



lady, Olga Belocoyitoff, who survives him after being his constant help throughout 

 much of his subsequent work. With his friend and compatriot Kowalewsky he 

 shares the honour of practically founding the modern study of cellular embryology 

 from which cell lineage has grown. In the course of his researches he was led to 

 deal with the activities of various cells and particularly to the intracellular 

 digestion in the wandering amoeboid cells of various animals to which he gave 

 the name phagocytes. These activities he almost at once correlated on the one 

 hand with the microbes of Pasteur, and on the other with the Darwinian concept 

 of the struggle for existence. This quickly developed into the well-known theory 

 of "phagocytosis" which brought its propounder before a wider public and 

 opened up such vast fields of research that he forsook zoology to break the 

 new ground. 



As opportunities for this work were not forthcoming in Odessa, he left in 1888, 

 and perhaps only naturally, but certainly fortunately, came to work in the old 

 Pasteur Institute where he remained until the new one in rue Dutot was built, 

 and in this Elie Metchnikoff, as he was now called by his French friends, settled 

 down and actually died on the building. His subsequent studies were marked by 

 two striking books. The first was The Comparative Pathology of Inflammation 

 in 1892, which contains a series of lectures setting forth his view that inflammation 

 is brought about by a local stoppage in the blood flow induced by the nervous 

 system, so allowing a large number of phagocytes to leave the capillaries. These 

 phagocytes, attracted to the injured spot by chemiotaxis, form an army through 

 whose agency obnoxious substances and harmful bacteria are got rid of. As 

 might be expected, these views were opposed by many of the medical professioni 

 but although involved in controversy he never indulged in wordy disputation, but 

 answered his critics by publishing further researches on crucial points. 



After a further period of brilliant research by himself and his pupils he 

 published in 1901 the second book, Immunity in Infectious Diseases. This 

 involved the discussion of a large number of the branches of the modern theories 

 of immunity including antitoxins, opsonins, bacteriotropins, etc., many of which 

 owe their origin to, and almost all were rendered possible by work done in, his 

 laboratories. He subsequently published in 1903 a more popular book, The 

 Nature of Man, and it is this that is best known to the general public. In 

 dealing with old age, he advanced the view that senility and early death may 

 be induced by the poisonous substances produced during certain fermentation 

 processes that sometimes take place in the large intestine. Experiment showed 

 that such fermentation could be stopped by the addition of soured milk to the 

 diet. This was of course an opportunity too obvious for journalists to let slip, 

 and it is about the one thing that is prominently associated with Metchnikoff's 

 name by the public. 



Here in brief is the outline of a great life's work. It is a life that provides 

 an answer to the people, unfortunately too numerous, who constantly demand to 

 know what " use " science is going to be and regard with intolerance the study 

 of science for its own sake. It would have been impossible from his first papers 

 to predict the course of Metchnikoffs work, yet what more natural sequence 

 could be found ? Starting with pure microscopical zoology, the transition to 

 embryology is quite an obvious one and so also is the change from this to the 

 study of the activities of the cell layers of the lower animals. Here the amoeboid 

 cells fixed his attention and from that he became a pathologist, and few men have 

 had so wide an influence on the theory and practice of medicine. 



His brilliance was recognised during his lifetime, for he was awarded the 



