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 tha 4 } 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 1913 I 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 



