126 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



and mad races of cavalry across the sandy beach ; 

 opium smokers ; mysterious silhouettes of veUed 

 women ; the call to prayer from the tall minarets 

 ^aU that strange and exotic life fascinated us. 

 But after a time the wild customs, continual shout- 

 ing on the occasion of every ceremony, vendettas, 

 cruel fanaticism, and also the absolute lack of in- 

 tellectual resources, began to teU on our nerves. 

 Inactivity weighed heavily upon MetchnikofE ; never- 

 theless, he bore his ill-luck with his usual courage 

 and gaiety, finding great consolation in the excellent 

 influence that the climate of Tangiers had upon all 

 our healths. 



At last, in the spring, we started for VUlefranche, 

 where he immediately set to work with success upon 

 the embryology of jelly-fish ; an important mono- 

 graph on that subject was published by him in 1886. 

 In it he gave definite form to his theory of the phago- 

 cytella and the genetic relationships of animals and 

 of their primitive organs, a theory already mentioned 

 above (p. 110). 



From Villefranche we went to Trieste, where 

 Metchnikofi studied star-fish and filled the lacunae in 

 his researches on the origin of the mesoderm. 



In a medical review which he read at Trieste, he 

 found the first account of his phagocyte theory ; 

 it was an unfavourable and hostile criticism by a 

 German scientist of the name of Baumgarten, en- 

 deavouring to prove that MetchnikofE's deductions 

 were inadmissible. This grieved and pained him very 

 much, but he immediately recovered himself and 

 strongly determined to study the medical side of the 

 question in order to prove on that ground that his 

 theory was well-founded. 



