260 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



planned on the sexual function, of wliicli he wrote 

 only the introduction and a few lines of the first 

 chapter.^ 



Another question occupied hifti at that time, that 

 of first-born children. Certain data led him to think 

 that men of genius were but rarely the first-born of 

 their parents, and he sought for every possible 

 information on the subject. In his constant desire 

 to improve life-conditions, he even thought that a 

 demonstration of this fact might have a desirable 

 influence on the increase of population in France 

 after the war ; if it were proved that the most success- 

 ful children are not the first-born, perhaps the system 

 of having two children only would be given up in 

 order to have a chance of giving the country a more 

 capable population. 



His reflections on the sexual questions led him to 

 seek for experimental means of studying gonorrhoea. 

 He thought of inoculating the gonococcus into the eye 

 of new-born mice and entrusted M. Rubinstein, the 

 only worker left in the laboratory, with these experi- 

 ments. The latter began them and obtained en- 

 couraging results, but he left Paris in the spring and 

 the work remained unfinished. 



Metchnikofi's mind never ceased to work unless 



^ He expounded the theory that ideas on the sexual function had been 

 falsified through fear of venereal diseases at a time when people did not know 

 either how to avoid or cure those diseases. He showed that the condem- 

 nation of a natural function by divers religions was based on that fear. He 

 analysed the deplorable consequences of that, and set forth the necessity of 

 returning to more wholesome ideas, more in conformity with nature and 

 allowing the study and avoidance of many evils. He thought that, in this 

 connection, a new direction should be given to the education of children 

 and to marriage. He then examined the part played by the sexual function 

 in the lives of men of genius and, with that object, read many biographies 

 and literary works. During his illness he read books concerning Victor 

 Hugo and Napoleon, J. J. Rousseau's Confessions and even parts of the 

 Nouvelle Heloise. 



