CHAPTER XXVII 



Private sorrows — ^Death of Pasteur, 1895 — Ill-health — Senile atrophies 

 — Premature death — Orthobiosis — Syphilis — Acquisition of an- 

 thropoid apes. 



Metchnikopf's health had suffered from the numerous 

 emotions provoked by the struggle in defence of the 

 phagocyte doctrine and also from a series of sad 

 events. In 1893, sickness and death feU upon our 

 family ; I lost a sister and a brother at a short interval 

 and had myself to undergo a serious operation. My 

 husband nursed me night and day, as a mother might 

 have done, and went through the deepest anxiety 

 on account of post-operative complications. All this 

 told on him aU the more that he had just endured 

 cruel moral suffering during the experiments on cholera 

 mentioned above. In 1894, an agricultural crisis in 

 Russia influenced our material situation and gave him 

 many worries. In the autumn of 1895, M. Pasteur's 

 health became worse and, soon afterwards, he died. 



This series of calamities depressed Metchnikoff, his 

 old cardiac trouble returned, and he again became a 

 prey to insomnia. We spent part of the holidays in 

 the mountains, thinking it might do him good, but 

 he did not care for a prolonged rest ; he was pre- 

 occupied by the thought of his interrupted experiments 

 and only thought of returning to the laboratory. 



In 1898, he had some disquieting symptoms of 



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