LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 119 



inflammation admitted in contemporary medicine was 

 exactly contrary to Metchnikoff's. It was believed 

 that the leucocytes, far from destroying microbes, 

 spread them by carrying them and by forming a 

 medium favourable to their growth. 



Metchnikoff always preserved a deep gratitude 

 towards Virchow and Kleinenberg for the moral 

 support which they gave him at that time. 



When the hot weather came, we left Messina for 

 Biva, a delicious summer resort on the shores of the 

 Lake of Garda. There, Metchnikofi wrote his first 

 memoir on the reaction of inflammation and on the 

 digestion of microbes by the mesodermic cells of 

 lower invertebrates. On the way back to Russia 

 through Vienna, he went to see the Professor of 

 Zoology, Glaus ; he found other colleagues with him 

 and expounded his theory to them. They were much 

 interested, and he asked them for a Greek translation 

 of the words " devouring cells," and that is how they 

 were given the name of phagocytes. 



Glaus asked him for his memoir for the Review 

 which he edited and in which it appeared soon after- 

 wards, in 1883. 1 The new-born " phagocyte theory " 

 was thus very well received by naturalists and by 

 Virchow, the father of cellular pathology. 



Having returned to Russia, we went to the country, 

 where Elie had to attend to family business ; never- 

 theless, he continued his researches in every leisure 

 moment. He had observed in Echinoderma that, 

 during the transformation of their larvae, the parts 

 becoming atrophied were englobed by mesodermic 



1 Arbeiten des zool. Inst. zu Wien, Bd. v. Heft ii. p. 141. "Unter- 

 suchung iiber die intracellulare Verdauung bei wirbellosen Tieren," E. 

 Metcknikoft. 



