48 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



This sojourn in a revolutionary centre interested 

 him much, but had the result of confirming his con- 

 viction that science was immeasurably superior to 

 politics, and he congratulated himself on the path he 

 had chosen. After he had rested, he started to return 

 to Giessen and stopped at Heidelberg, a centre for 

 Russian students who gathered around Helmholtz, 

 Virchow, and Bunsen. He hurried to the library in 

 order to see scientific periodicals ; one of the first that 

 came under his eyes was a number of the Gottingen 

 News, containing a memoir by Leuckart on the Nema- 

 todes which they had studied together ; Leuckart 

 described, in his own name, their common researches 

 and also those personal to the young man, whom he 

 only mentioned incidentally. EHe was shocked and 

 indignant. On his return to Giessen he tried to obtain 

 an explanation from Leuckart but in vain ; the latter 

 eluded his questions and gave him no answer.^ 



In his despair, the youth confided in Glaus, a pro- 

 fessor of zoology whose acquaintance he had made 

 at the Congress, who told him that Leuckart was in 

 the habit of such dealings, and urged Elie, as an inde- 

 pendent stranger, to reveal the fact. He pressed this 

 with so much insistence that Elie ended in following 

 his advice ; he sent an article stating the case to 

 Dubois-Reymond's journal. He then departed from 

 Giessen without taking leave of Leuckart. 



Having had a bursa of 1600 roubles a year granted 

 him for two years by the Russian Ministry of Public 

 Instruction, he was able to undertake a journey to 

 the shores of the Mediterranean in order to pursue 

 his researches. 



^ All this episode was described by Metchnikoff in 1866 in a separate 

 publication with great restraint and in a very moderate tone. 



