236 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



the musical compositions which formerly used to make me 

 shed tears of enthusiasm (for instance, Beethoven's 7th 

 Symphony or Bach's aria for the violin). Well, my impres- 

 sionability towards music has very much lessened. In spite 

 of the facility with which old people weep, I hardly shed a 

 single tear, save with rare exceptions. 



I observe the same change in other circumstances. 



This spring, the blossoming of flowers, buds, bushes, and 

 trees, all this renascence of nature, has not excited in me a 

 shadow of the emotion of preceding years. 



Rather I felt a melancholy, not on account of my coming 

 end, but because of the consciousness of the burden of existence. 



There is no question for me now of the old joy of living ; 

 my predominant feeling is infinite anxiety for the health and 

 happiness of those I love. I now so well understand Petten- 

 koffer, who committed suicide at 84 after losing all his 

 family. Their death had evidently been precocious because 

 of the impotence of medicine. At every step, one comes 

 across cases where neither hygiene nor therapeutics can do 

 anything. How many are infected with tuberculosis, no 

 one knows how or where. What is to be done to avoid it ? 

 And the consequences of measles, of scarlet fever, perhaps of 

 a simple sore throat, followed sometimes by tuberculosis 

 or nephritis ! 



What is the use of being able to foretell, by means of the 

 proportion of urea in the blood, the precise moment of the 

 death of an " azotemic " patient when you cannot prevent it 

 or cure him ? 



This imperfection of medical science prevents many 

 from reaching true orthobiosis, and it is understandable that, 

 seeing the present state of medicine, the feeling of the " burden 

 of existence " may be precocious, as in my case. 



But it is indubitable that, in spite of the slowness with 

 which medical science is developing, it will in the future 

 reach a degree which will enable us to cease to tremble any 

 longer before all sorts of incurable diseases. Orthobiosis will 

 then appear, no longer under its present incomplete form, 

 but as the solid and essential basis of life. 



