Elias Mecznihow. lix 



of heart and his ardent desire to alleviate human suffering. He never was a 

 smoker, and 20 years ago gave up the use of alcohol entirely. He had no 

 taste for sport of any kind, and never indulged in " recreations " or " amuse- 

 ments " or big social functions. He was a devoted lover of music, and had 

 much knowledge of art and many friends in the great art world of Paris. 

 His beard was large and his hair long, and he was thick-set and muscularly 

 strong, though he became more and more bent, as the years went on, by his 

 constant stooping over the microscope. No year passed, after I first knew 

 him, without my spending some time with him and Madame Metchnikoff in 

 Paris or in their home at Sevres, and on several occasions he has stayed 

 with me in London or earlier in Oxford. From time to time he has shown 

 to me the experiments and microscopic evidence upon which his own and 

 his pupils' discoveries were based, and has put before me the preliminary 

 hypotheses by aid of which he was seeking — as opportunity offered — to 

 arrive at further knowledge of appendicitis, syphilis, the yaws, infantile 

 paralysis, green diarrhoea, cholera, tubercle, cancer, diabetes, gout, and 

 rheumatism. Only three years ago he carried out some new researches on a 

 zoological subject — the natural removal of black pigment from the wing- 

 feathers of gulls — which he proposed to publish in the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science.' But the terrible events of the last two years put 

 such work out of his power. In his last moments he insisted very urgently 

 that an immediate autopsy should follow his death. He had suffered for 

 six months from pneumonia, pleurisy, and latterly bronchitis. The autopsy 

 showed atheroma of the aorta and related cardiac disease. Metchnikoff died 

 in the apartments of the Institut which had been assigned as a dwelling to 

 Pasteur. According to his wish, his remains have been incinerated, and the 

 urn containing his ashes is placed in the library of the Pasteur Institute. 



E. K. L. 



[The preceding article is a corrected reprint (with some additions) of that 

 published by the writer in ' Nature,' July 27, 1916.] 



VOL. LXXXIX. — B. 



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