222 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



Metchnikoff made some laboratory animals ingest 

 this microbe together with food, and ascertained that 

 it reached the large intestine and decomposed in it 

 the starch of farinaceous food into sugar, of which the 

 acid products prevented the swarming of putrefying 

 microbes. By this process it is possible to reduce to 

 a minimum and even sometimes to eliminate the 

 production of phenol and indol in rats subjected to 

 a mixed diet and made at the same time to ingest 

 cultures of the lactic bacillus and of the glycobacter. 



Metchnikoff applied these different diets to him- 

 self and to other individuals and obtained concordant 

 results. 



However, he ascertained that it is not only the 

 food diet which regulates the quantity of microbian 

 poisons contained in the organism ; that quantity 

 sometimes varies very much in spite of an identical 

 diet. He thought that a very important part of 

 influence is due to pre-existing microbes which pre- 

 vent or favour the development of microbes of putre- 

 faction. All these questions, complicated by the 

 richness and variety of the intestinal flora, still de- 

 manded a long series of laborious researches. 



At the end of the winter he felt tired, and we 

 went to the seaside during the holidays. But the 

 sharp sea air did not suit him ; he had a beginning of 

 cardiac asthma and nearly fainted during a walk. 

 We therefore had to come away from the sea, and 

 went inland, to Eu. At the beginning of our stay, 

 Metchnikoff did not feel well, walking tired him, he 

 suffered from cardiac intermittence ; it was only 

 gradually that his condition improved and he was 

 able to write the preface to a Russian edition of his 

 philosophical articles. 



