METCHNIKOFF, Elie, Russian bacteri ologist: b. Kharkoff, Little Russia, 15 May 1845; d. Paris, France, 15July 1916. Following his education at Kharkoff, Metchnikoff studied at Giessen and Munich, and in 1870 he was ap pointed professor of zoology at Odessa. He held this post until 1882, when he resigned to devote himself to private researches into the anatomy of invertebrates. It was while work ing at lowly organized forms of life such as sponges that he first made the observations which constituted the basis of all his subsequent work. In 1888 he had attracted the notice of Louis Pasteur, the founder of the famous Pasteur Institute for the treatment of rabies, in Paris, and he was invited to become one of Pasteur's associates. In 1895 he succeeded as the director of the institute, a post which he held to the time of his death. In his study of longevity, Metchnikoff came to the belief that it should not be uncommon for nersons to live to the age of 150 years. He found every indi cation that the human mechanism was calcu lated to last far longer than it actually does. His researches showed among other things that animals which had no large intestines lived to an advanced age, particularly birds, which pre serve their youthful agility and spryness to the end of their long span. In the case of human beings he found that even among those whose sufferings were terrible, there were few who wanted to be put out of their agony by death. They all wanted to live. If the normal specific longevity were attained by human be ings he believed that old and not degenerate individuals would lose the instinct for life and acquire an instinct for death and that as they had fulfilled the normal cycle of life, they would accept death with the same relieved ac quiescence as they now accept sleep. On
his seventieth birthday, in 1915, Professor Metchnikoff received a present of a golden book, forming a unique record of the latest scientific researches, signed by men of science of the day. Although there was much con troversy in the scientific world regarding his ideas, deas, he was fully recognized as one of the most eminent bacteriologists. In 1908 the Nobel prize for medical research was di vided between the late Dr. Paul Ehrlich, of Ber lin, and Professor Metchnikoff. The $20,000 which he thus received he devoted entirely to the furtherance of his scientific researches. Personally he was not well.off, and throughout his long life sacrificed all but the plainest liv ing necessities to the cause of science. He sr i the author of a number of books ncludes; 'Lectures on the Comparative Pathology Inflammation' (London (London 1893) ; 'Immumn c Infective Diseases' (New York 1905); 'Eni sur le nature humaine; essai de philosophy optimiste' (1903). English translations of t. lectures are 'The New Hygiene> (Claw 1907); 'The Nature of Man' (New York 19i1 He edited, with Sacquepee and other, (Medicaments microbiens, etc.' (1909). Cons: 'Annales de l'Institut Pasteur> (Paris), an Slosson, E. E., 'Major Prophets of Todrr (Boston 1914).