Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916Metchnikoff, Olga
Science
Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916
Metchnikoff, Olga
Metchnikoff, Elie, 1845-1916
He thought it would be useful to extend this method, as far as
possible, to researches such as that on tuberculosis and on cancer,
such researches being complicated and protracted and demanding
co-ordinate efforts and an organisation that should prevent the
repetition of individual first steps. A clinic attached to the
Pasteur Institute and adapted to scientific researches seemed to him
indispensable.
He also considered that the experimental study of those human diseases
which can only be inoculated in anthropoid apes should be carried out
through the breeding of those animals in the colonies, for infantile
diseases demand very young apes as subjects for experiments, and they
cannot be brought to Europe in sufficient numbers without great loss. A
mission of workers might carry out experiments on the spot.
He thought the popularisation of science a very useful thing and wished
the Pasteur Institute to participate in it by appropriate courses of
public lectures. He attached great importance to the penetration into
ordinary life of results acquired by science, for the struggle against
disease consists chiefly in prophylactic and hygienic measures which
can only be applied by a well-informed public. For that reason he was
always willing to be interviewed on scientific questions by journalists
and, indeed, by any one, however ignorant. In order to instruct the
public he often wrote popular articles on questions of hygiene and
medicine.
Science in general never was a dead letter for him; his most abstract
conceptions were always narrowly bound to life; he saw one through the
other and considered that they should serve each other.
Apart from scientific researches, he took part in the courses given at
the Pasteur Institute. He prepared his lectures with infinite care,
and, in spite of his long experience, he never could give them without
some nervousness, especially during the last years of his life. He used
even to write down the first sentences and to read them out in order
to give himself time to recover; but very soon his self-control would
return, and he would proceed with animation and lucidity; his lectures
were living and suggestive.
I have mentioned above Roux's masterly appreciation of his influence at
the Pasteur Institute. The following was written to me, a year after
Metchnikoff's death, by one of his closest disciples and collaborators,
and describes in a vivid manner the deep feelings with which he
inspired his pupils:
"You say that you love to think that he continues to live in
others. Could it have been otherwise? A character as powerful as
his is capable of influencing and illuminating the life, not of one
individual, but of a whole generation. I look upon it as the greatest
good fortune of my life that I was able to spend my best years in his
orbit and to impregnate my mind with his spirit, not his scientific
spirit, but that which he manifested in facing life and humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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