li 



ELIAS MECZNIKOW, 1845-1916. 



One of the most remarkable figures in the scientific world passed from among 

 us on July 15, 1916. Elie Metchnikoff, as they wrote his name in France, his 

 adopted home, stands out as the type of a gifted, indefatigable investigator 

 of Nature who, in accordance with his beautiful and earnest character, never 

 faltered in his career, but from his boyhood onwards devoted himself to the 

 minute study of animal life. By a natural and, as it seemed, inevitable process 

 he passed through the study of the microscopic structure and embryonic 

 growth of simple marine organisms to the investigation of human diseases 

 and to his great discoveries of the nature of the process known as inflamma- 

 tion and of the mechanism of " immunity " to infective germs and the poisons 

 produced by them. By every zoologist in the world he was especially 

 honoured and revered ; for it was to him that we owed the demonstration of 

 the unity of biological science and the brilliant proof of the invaluable 

 importance to humanity of that delightful pursuit of the structure and laws 

 of growth and form of the lower animals which he and we had pursued from 

 pure love of the beauty and wonder of the intricate problems of organic 

 morphology. 



Just as his chief and friend, the great Pasteur, was privileged to proceed 

 directly and logically in his own life's work, by his genius and insight, from 

 the discovery of astonishing new facts as to crystalline structure — which 

 seemed to have no bearing on human affairs — to the understanding (by the aid 

 of those discoveries) of fermentation and infective disease ; so did Metchnikoff 

 himself both discover the activity and universality of the organic cell- 

 units which he called " phagocytes," and at once proceed to give the 

 demonstration of their prime importance in the process known as inflamma- 

 tion and the understanding of " immunity," which has revolutionised medical 

 theory and practice. 



Metchnikoff, though one of the greatest benefactors of mankind, by his 

 discoveries as to the nature and consequent treatment of disease, did not set 

 out on his career with any preconceived intention of arriving at what are 

 called " practical results." Like so many others of the greatest discoverers, 

 he was attracted to the field of his life's work by a delight in its beauty. 

 His aesthetic sense was gratified by the observation and discovery of the 

 relations of the marvellous phenomena of structure and function in the 

 teeming life of earth and sea — only revealed by the microscope, and then 

 only to the strenuous, conscientious, and faithful student. He wandered, 

 as though led by instinct, into this enchanting "fairyland," and, as has 

 happened to others, in the midst of his ever-varied, ever-fascinating 

 experiences, he suddenly and unexpectedly found himself in sight of 

 something different — a thing of vast and immediate value to humanity. 

 He saw under his hand, as it were, a discovery which might prove to be of 



