It has been a great satisfaction to me to carry out the wish of my dear friend Elie Metchnikoff, and arrange for the production of an English translation of his biography. The account of his life and work written by Olga Metchnikoff is a remarkable and beautiful record of the development and activities of a great discoverer. It is remarkable because it is seldom that one who undertakes such a task has had so constant a share in, and so complete a knowledge and understanding of, the life portrayed as in the present case: seldom that the intimate thought and mental “adventure” of a discoverer presents so clear and consistent a history. It is beautiful because it is put before us with perfect candour and simplicity guided by rare intelligence and inspired by deep affection. Madame Metchnikoff has drawn the picture of the development of a single-minded character absolutely and tenaciously devoted to a high purpose—the improvement of human life. It is a story of “struggles and adventures,” but they are wholly in the field of the investigation of Nature. We read here little or nothing of the quest for personal advancement, for fortune or official position. These things had no attraction for Metchnikoff. He left[vi] Russia and took an unpaid post in Paris in order to have a place to work in. He had many devoted friends in whose company he sought refreshment and relaxation, but all his immense energy and industry were concentrated on the development and establishment of his great biological theory of “Phagocytosis” and its outcome, the philosophy of life called by him “Orthobiosis.” This volume tells truly of a simple life—a life in which the social incidents which fill so large a space in most lives were either non-existent or unnoticed because, by the side of the great purpose which dominated Metchnikoff’s every thought and action—namely, the advancement of Science—he was not touched by them. He was affectionate, kind-hearted, and truly considerate of others, but was, in a way which is traceable to his racial origin, a practical idealist concentrating his whole strength and reason on the realisation of what he held to be the highest good.
I had as an eager reader of memoirs on biological subjects become acquainted with Metchnikoff’s earliest publications in 1865, when he was twenty years of age and I two years younger. I wrote short accounts of them, as they appeared, for a chronicle of progress in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, then edited by my father. Those on a European Land Planarian, on the development of Myzostomum (the parasite of the Feather-Star), on Apsilus, a strange new kind of wheel-animalcule, and his protest against Rudolf Leuckart’s treatment of him in the matter of his important discoveries concerning[vii] the Frog’s lung-worm—Ascaris nigrovenosa—remain in my memory, and later, in 1872, I was especially struck by his important demonstration of the true mode of development of the gastrula of the calcareous sponges in correction of Professor Ernst Haeckel. Many other papers of his became known to me, until in 1881 he published his first observations on Intracellular Digestion in Lower Animals, which was the starting-point of his life’s work on “Phagocytosis,” to which all his subsequent researches—during thirty-five years—were exclusively dedicated.
In 1888 I was introduced by my friend Lauder Brunton to the great Pasteur, and called on him at his laboratory in the rue d’Ulm. There I met Metchnikoff, only lately arrived from Russia, and welcomed as one of his staff by Pasteur. The next year, 1889, Pasteur was installed in the new “Institut Pasteur” in the rue Dutot, and I met Metchnikoff there in his new quarters. Pasteur’s assistants were carrying on daily his system of inoculation against rabies, and many British subjects were amongst those treated. I persuaded the Lord Mayor of that year, Sir James Whitehead, to visit the Pasteur Institute with a view to taking steps to make some recognition of the services rendered by Pasteur to our fellow-countrymen in treating over two hundred of them threatened with hydrophobia. Sir James called a meeting on July 1, 1889, at the Mansion House, and placed the management of it in my hands. As a result we obtained subscriptions to a fund which[viii] enabled us to assist many poor British subjects to visit Paris for the purpose of undergoing M. Pasteur’s treatment, to make a donation of 30,000 francs to the Pasteur Institute, and to initiate with a sum of £300 the formation of a fund for the purpose of establishing an Institute in London similar in purpose and character to the Institut Pasteur. That initial fund has step by step received generous additions and given us the “Lister Institute” on Chelsea Embankment possessed
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I had as an eager reader of memoirs on biological subjects become acquainted with Metchnikoff’s earliest publications in 1865, when he was twenty years of age and I two years younger. I wrote short accounts of them, as they appeared, for a chronicle of progress in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, then edited by my father. Those on a European Land Planarian, on the development of Myzostomum (the parasite of the Feather-Star), on Apsilus, a strange new kind of wheel-animalcule, and his protest against Rudolf Leuckart’s treatment of him in the matter of his important discoveries concerning[vii] the Frog’s lung-worm—Ascaris nigrovenosa—remain in my memory, and later, in 1872, I was especially struck by his important demonstration of the true mode of development of the gastrula of the calcareous sponges in correction of Professor Ernst Haeckel. Many other papers of his became known to me, until in 1881 he published his first observations on Intracellular Digestion in Lower Animals, which was the starting-point of his life’s work on “Phagocytosis,” to which all his subsequent researches—during thirty-five years—were exclusively dedicated.
In 1888 I was introduced by my friend Lauder Brunton to the great Pasteur, and called on him at his laboratory in the rue d’Ulm. There I met Metchnikoff, only lately arrived from Russia, and welcomed as one of his staff by Pasteur. The next year, 1889, Pasteur was installed in the new “Institut Pasteur” in the rue Dutot, and I met Metchnikoff there in his new quarters. Pasteur’s assistants were carrying on daily his system of inoculation against rabies, and many British subjects were amongst those treated. I persuaded the Lord Mayor of that year, Sir James Whitehead, to visit the Pasteur Institute with a view to taking steps to make some recognition of the services rendered by Pasteur to our fellow-countrymen in treating over two hundred of them threatened with hydrophobia. Sir James called a meeting on July 1, 1889, at the Mansion House, and placed the management of it in my hands. As a result we obtained subscriptions to a fund which[viii] enabled us to assist many poor British subjects to visit Paris for the purpose of undergoing M. Pasteur’s treatment, to make a donation of 30,000 francs to the Pasteur Institute, and to initiate with a sum of £300 the formation of a fund for the purpose of establishing an Institute in London similar in purpose and character to the Institut Pasteur. That initial fund has step by step received generous additions and given us the “Lister Institute” on Chelsea Embankment possessed
Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 (Illustrated)
It has been a great satisfaction to me to carry out the wish of my dear friend Elie Metchnikoff, and arrange for the production of an English translation of his biography. The account of his life and work written by Olga Metchnikoff is a remarkable and beautiful record of the development and activities of a great discoverer. It is remarkable because it is seldom that one who undertakes such a task has had so constant a share in, and so complete a knowledge and understanding of, the life portrayed as in the present case: seldom that the intimate thought and mental “adventure” of a discoverer presents so clear and consistent a history. It is beautiful because it is put before us with perfect candour and simplicity guided by rare intelligence and inspired by deep affection. Madame Metchnikoff has drawn the picture of the development of a single-minded character absolutely and tenaciously devoted to a high purpose—the improvement of human life. It is a story of “struggles and adventures,” but they are wholly in the field of the investigation of Nature. We read here little or nothing of the quest for personal advancement, for fortune or official position. These things had no attraction for Metchnikoff. He left[vi] Russia and took an unpaid post in Paris in order to have a place to work in. He had many devoted friends in whose company he sought refreshment and relaxation, but all his immense energy and industry were concentrated on the development and establishment of his great biological theory of “Phagocytosis” and its outcome, the philosophy of life called by him “Orthobiosis.” This volume tells truly of a simple life—a life in which the social incidents which fill so large a space in most lives were either non-existent or unnoticed because, by the side of the great purpose which dominated Metchnikoff’s every thought and action—namely, the advancement of Science—he was not touched by them. He was affectionate, kind-hearted, and truly considerate of others, but was, in a way which is traceable to his racial origin, a practical idealist concentrating his whole strength and reason on the realisation of what he held to be the highest good.
I had as an eager reader of memoirs on biological subjects become acquainted with Metchnikoff’s earliest publications in 1865, when he was twenty years of age and I two years younger. I wrote short accounts of them, as they appeared, for a chronicle of progress in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, then edited by my father. Those on a European Land Planarian, on the development of Myzostomum (the parasite of the Feather-Star), on Apsilus, a strange new kind of wheel-animalcule, and his protest against Rudolf Leuckart’s treatment of him in the matter of his important discoveries concerning[vii] the Frog’s lung-worm—Ascaris nigrovenosa—remain in my memory, and later, in 1872, I was especially struck by his important demonstration of the true mode of development of the gastrula of the calcareous sponges in correction of Professor Ernst Haeckel. Many other papers of his became known to me, until in 1881 he published his first observations on Intracellular Digestion in Lower Animals, which was the starting-point of his life’s work on “Phagocytosis,” to which all his subsequent researches—during thirty-five years—were exclusively dedicated.
In 1888 I was introduced by my friend Lauder Brunton to the great Pasteur, and called on him at his laboratory in the rue d’Ulm. There I met Metchnikoff, only lately arrived from Russia, and welcomed as one of his staff by Pasteur. The next year, 1889, Pasteur was installed in the new “Institut Pasteur” in the rue Dutot, and I met Metchnikoff there in his new quarters. Pasteur’s assistants were carrying on daily his system of inoculation against rabies, and many British subjects were amongst those treated. I persuaded the Lord Mayor of that year, Sir James Whitehead, to visit the Pasteur Institute with a view to taking steps to make some recognition of the services rendered by Pasteur to our fellow-countrymen in treating over two hundred of them threatened with hydrophobia. Sir James called a meeting on July 1, 1889, at the Mansion House, and placed the management of it in my hands. As a result we obtained subscriptions to a fund which[viii] enabled us to assist many poor British subjects to visit Paris for the purpose of undergoing M. Pasteur’s treatment, to make a donation of 30,000 francs to the Pasteur Institute, and to initiate with a sum of £300 the formation of a fund for the purpose of establishing an Institute in London similar in purpose and character to the Institut Pasteur. That initial fund has step by step received generous additions and given us the “Lister Institute” on Chelsea Embankment possessed
I had as an eager reader of memoirs on biological subjects become acquainted with Metchnikoff’s earliest publications in 1865, when he was twenty years of age and I two years younger. I wrote short accounts of them, as they appeared, for a chronicle of progress in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, then edited by my father. Those on a European Land Planarian, on the development of Myzostomum (the parasite of the Feather-Star), on Apsilus, a strange new kind of wheel-animalcule, and his protest against Rudolf Leuckart’s treatment of him in the matter of his important discoveries concerning[vii] the Frog’s lung-worm—Ascaris nigrovenosa—remain in my memory, and later, in 1872, I was especially struck by his important demonstration of the true mode of development of the gastrula of the calcareous sponges in correction of Professor Ernst Haeckel. Many other papers of his became known to me, until in 1881 he published his first observations on Intracellular Digestion in Lower Animals, which was the starting-point of his life’s work on “Phagocytosis,” to which all his subsequent researches—during thirty-five years—were exclusively dedicated.
In 1888 I was introduced by my friend Lauder Brunton to the great Pasteur, and called on him at his laboratory in the rue d’Ulm. There I met Metchnikoff, only lately arrived from Russia, and welcomed as one of his staff by Pasteur. The next year, 1889, Pasteur was installed in the new “Institut Pasteur” in the rue Dutot, and I met Metchnikoff there in his new quarters. Pasteur’s assistants were carrying on daily his system of inoculation against rabies, and many British subjects were amongst those treated. I persuaded the Lord Mayor of that year, Sir James Whitehead, to visit the Pasteur Institute with a view to taking steps to make some recognition of the services rendered by Pasteur to our fellow-countrymen in treating over two hundred of them threatened with hydrophobia. Sir James called a meeting on July 1, 1889, at the Mansion House, and placed the management of it in my hands. As a result we obtained subscriptions to a fund which[viii] enabled us to assist many poor British subjects to visit Paris for the purpose of undergoing M. Pasteur’s treatment, to make a donation of 30,000 francs to the Pasteur Institute, and to initiate with a sum of £300 the formation of a fund for the purpose of establishing an Institute in London similar in purpose and character to the Institut Pasteur. That initial fund has step by step received generous additions and given us the “Lister Institute” on Chelsea Embankment possessed
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Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 (Illustrated)
Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 (Illustrated)
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940148163305 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Lost Leaf Publications |
| Publication date: | 01/07/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 511 KB |
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