234 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



As my 70 years draw near to their close, it seems to me 

 that a feeling of satiety with life, what I call the " natural 

 death instinct," is gently beginning to evolve. 



When, in autumn 1910, experimenting with typhoid 

 cultures, I had soiled my face and mouth, I naturally said 

 to myself that it might give me typhoid fever. I washed my 

 face and beard with soap and a solution of sublimate without 

 considering that I was safe against the infection. I reasoned 

 that it would be preferable to contract the disease and to die 

 of it. (At my age typhoid fever is almost always fatal. I 

 had never had it, and might therefore consider myself in a 

 state of receptivity.) It is fine to fall on the battlefield, 

 especially at an age when life and activity are already on 

 the wane. But all that was pure reasoning ; instinctively I 

 still felt a great desire to live, and it was with joy that I 

 counted the days which separated me from the danger of 

 having contracted typhoid fever. I felt much relieved a 

 fortnight after the incident, considering that the limit of 

 incubation was passed. 



Thus reasoning and feeling or instinct were not in accord. 



Since then, in the three following years, a modification has 

 taken place in my psychical condition. 



The prospect of death frightens me less than before. During 

 my cardiac crisis of the 19th October 19131 even felt no fear of 

 death, and my satisfaction at my recovery was less than before. 



I think it is that difference in quantity which constitutes 

 the first symptoms of indifference towards death, an indiffer- 

 ence which is hardly perceptible at first. 



Satiety with life is sometimes observed in old people of 

 80 ; it is not surprising to feel the first approach of it 

 about 70, especially in the case of a man like myself who 

 began very early to lead a very intense life. 



Other special circumstances influence even more this 

 precocious satiety of life. As I become more indifferent to 

 my own life I feel a more and more acute anxiety for the 

 health, life, and happiness of those who are dear to me. 



I am especially troubled by a consciousness of the im- 

 perfection of modern medicine. In spite of the progress 



