Mechnikov Nobel Prize 1908. The most honorary prize. Nobel. G

Literature
Rudolf Aiken. Nobel Prize in Literature, 1908
Rudolf Aiken was awarded the prize for his serious search for truth, the all-pervading power of thought, his broad outlook, liveliness and persuasiveness with which he defended and developed the idealist philosophy. Professor Aiken wrote serious studies in various fields of philosophy and was a champion of true spirituality, not superficial morality, but a life full of nobility and dignity.

Physiology and medicine
Ilya Mechnikov. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1908
Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov was awarded the prize for his work on immunity. M.'s most important contribution to science was methodological in nature: the goal of the scientist was to study "immunity in infectious diseases from the standpoint of cellular physiology." Mechnikov's name is associated with a popular commercial method for making kefir.

The medicine
Paul Erlich. Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1908
German pharmacologist and immunologist. In 1908, Erlich, together with Ilya Mechnikov, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their work on the theory of immunity." In the Nobel lecture E. expressed confidence that scientists began to "understand the mechanism of action of therapeutic substances ..,". “I also hope,” he further noted, “that if these directions are systematically developed, it will soon become easier than before for us to develop rational ways of synthesizing drugs.”

World
Claes Arnoldson. Nobel Peace Prize, 1908
Klas Arnoldson was awarded an award for his participation in the resolution of the Norwegian conflict. The journalist Arnoldson was one of the most popular orators in the early days of the European peace movement. He devoted all his strength to the struggle for individual rights and democracy, striving to ensure religious tolerance through legislation and moderate militarism.

World
Frederic Bayer. Nobel Peace Prize, 1908
Danish pacifist. in 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for the creation of the Scandinavian Inter-Parliamentary Union to strengthen regional cooperation." Emphasizing the importance of international law for resolving disputes, he noted: “Sometimes one hears that treaties lose all meaning with the outbreak of war ... This is a militaristic view that a pacifist cannot put up with. We must do everything we can to ensure that the idea of ​​law prevails.”

Chemistry
Ernest Rutherford. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1908
Ernest Rutherford received the prize for his research on the decay of elements in the chemistry of radioactive substances. The discoveries led to a startling conclusion: chemical element able to transform into other elements. Rutherford proposed a new model of the atom that is generally accepted today. This model is similar to the tiny solar system and assumes that atoms are made up mostly of empty space.

Physics
Gabriel Lippman. Nobel Prize in Physics, 1908
French physicist. "For the creation of a method of photographic reproduction of colors based on the phenomenon of interference," L. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908. Mentioning that "the key position occupied by the photographic reproduction of various objects in modern life”, K.B. Hasselberg of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at the awards ceremony said that "the method of color photography L. marks a new step forward ... in the art of photography."

Louis Pasteur - founder of immunology

1887 - report at the French Academy of Sciences

Principles for the prevention of infectious diseases by weakened or killed pathogens (chicken cholera)

In the Russian chronicles, along with numerous descriptions of illnesses of princes and representatives of the upper class (boyars, clergy), horrific pictures of large epidemics of plague and other infectious diseases, which in Russia were called "pestilence", are given. During the period from the 11th to the 18th centuries. the annals mention 47 pestilences. They began, as a rule, in the border cities - Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, through which foreign merchant caravans passed.

In 1546 Professor at the University of Padua J. Frakastro wrote his work "On Contagion, Contagious Diseases and Treatment" in three books, in which he significantly shook the previously held ideas about "miasms".

Joseph Lister (1827-1912)

English physician, surgeon, founder of the antiseptic theory. He proved that MO cause suppuration of wounds, get from the external environment with dust, tools, honey on hands and clothes. personnel. Suggested to use carbolic acid.

Paul Ehrlich (1854 - 1915)

The German pharmacologist and immunologist, the first discoveries in the field of chemotherapy, scientifically substantiated and for the first time used drugs for the treatment of syphilis (salvarsan 606 - an arsenic compound).

1908 - Nobel Prize

Sergei Nikolaevich Vinogradsky (1856-1953)

Founder of soil microbiology and the theory of chemosynthesis. Worked in St. Petersburg in the field of microbial ecology, studied MT in the natural environment. Opened the breath MO due to the chemical oxidation of inorganic substances: the oxidation of ammonia, sulfur, nitrate.

Nikolai Fedorovich Gamaleya (1859-1949)

Creator of bacteriological stations in Russia, rabies vaccination station

Edward Jenner (1749-1823)

English physician of the county of Gloucestershire, founder vaccination (vaccination against cowpox to prevent smallpox)). The idea of ​​cowpox vaccination came to young Jenner in a conversation with an elderly milkmaid whose hands were covered with skin rashes.

1908 - I.I. Mechnikov and Erlich P.

Phagocytic theory of immunity.

Humoral theory of immunity.

Attempts to clarify the mechanisms of protection.

Nobel Prize for studying the nature of immunity.

I.I. Mechnikov

S. Ivanovka (Kharkov).

1879 - theory of the origin of multicellular organisms.

1882 - phagocytosis.

1883 - phagocytic theory of immunity.

1892 - Theory of the comparative pathology of inflammation.

Emil Adolf von Behring (1854 - 1917)

Nobel Prize in 1901 for the discovery of the protective properties of tetanus and diphtheria sera.

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843 - 1910)

In 1905, for "research and discoveries concerning the treatment of tuberculosis", Robert Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Ehrlich, Paul (1854-1915)Respiration processes in tissues.

Different forms of leukocytes.

The role of the bone marrow in hematopoiesis.

Mast cells.

Method for staining pathogens of tuberculosis.

Treatment of syphilis with arsenic.

Experimental tumor growth.

Nils Kai Erne (1911, London)

Affinity of AG and AT.

1954 - the theory of selective formation of antibodies (applied the theory of natural selection: antibodies, as it were, undergo selection)

Side chain theory - Nobel Prize 1984 (AT itself can be AG, and antibodies will be produced against it).

Macfarlane BURNET (1899 - 1985), Australian

He graduated from the medical faculty in Melbourne, defended his thesis in London.

In Melbourne - vaccination against diphtheria (Staphylococcus) in 1928, the death of 12 children.

He returned to England (chicken embryos) - virology, the question is: how does the body distinguish between its own and “not its own”?

The basis of the theory of tolerance ("one's own - not - one's own").

1960 - Nobel Prize for clonal selection theory.

Snell, Dosse, Benaceraf

1980 - Nobel Prize for discoveries concerning certain structures on the cell surface that regulate immune functions.

Mechanisms of cell recognition, immune reactions, transplant rejection.

Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich lived a decent life and gave this world many important scientific discoveries. In 1908, he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, and this is far from the most important and major achievement in his biography.

Both our and foreign biologists, physiologists and immunologists have heard about it well. Ilya Ilyich managed to work productively as a pathologist, embryologist, and zoologist. It was he who became one of the founders of evolutionary embryology, discovered phagocytosis and intracellular digestion. He created the comparative pathology of inflammation, the phagocytic theory of immunity and phagocytella, and also founded the scientific gerontology.

Undoubtedly, contemporaries are surprised and, at the same time, admired by the ease and professionalism with which this amazing person managed to cope with so many things at the same time. Whatever he did, Ilya Ilyich succeeded everywhere and was not afraid to share his ideas, thanks to which he won respect among his colleagues and recognition of the entire scientific world.

The family of the great scientist

The famous scientist was born on May 15, 1845 in the Kharkiv region, in the family of the landowner Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov, who came from an old Moldavian boyar family. His mother's name was Emilia Lvovna Nevakhovich. She is the daughter of the famous Jewish publicist Leib Noyekhovich Nevakhovich. This man is considered the founder of Russian-Jewish literature.

She also had two brothers: Mikhail Lvovich became famous as a cartoonist and became the publisher of Russia's first humorous collection Yeralash, and Alexander Lvovich was in charge of the repertoire of the Imperial Theaters and was a good playwright.

Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov also has two siblings. The first one is called Leo - he is a Swiss geographer and sociologist, became a member of the national liberation movement in Italy, an ardent anarchist. The second - Ivan, became the Tula provincial prosecutor, he was also the prototype of the protagonist of L.N. Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".

Not surprisingly, with such a pedigree, Mechnikov had no choice but to become a famous scientist and make a significant contribution to various scientific fields.

Early research and achievements

In 1864 Ilya Ilyich graduated from Kharkov National University named after V. Karazin and a year later he discovered the phenomenon of intracellular digestion in the study of planarians. In this he was assisted by Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov, a well-known surgeon and anatomist, zoologist R. Leikart and physiologist K. Siebolt. It was they who supported him in the early stages of development and introduced him to other scientists, including the biologist A.O. Kovalevsky.

Working in Germany and Italy, Ilya Ilyich discovered new classes of invertebrates, and also proved the unity of their origin and vertebrates.

For these and other studies, he earned the position of assistant professor at Novorossiysk University and, thus, three years after graduation, he defended his master's thesis at St. Petersburg University, and in 1868 became a private docent of this educational institution.

A little later, on the recommendation of the outstanding physiologist I.M. Sechenov, he was offered the position of professor at the Military Medical Academy. This is an incredibly prestigious medical institution, which trained the class ranks of the military department, but the scientist refused in favor of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa. Together with him, N.A. Umov, Sechenov, as well as A.O. Kovalevsky got a job there.

In 1875, he discovered phagocytic immunity, an extremely important function of intracellular digestion. In 1879, he proposed a biological method for protecting plants from various pests.

Personal life

Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov had a wife, L.V. Feodorovich. In 1873, she died of tuberculosis, and hard times fell on the scientist. Not wanting to come to terms with such a huge loss, he tried to commit suicide. Fortunately, he did not succeed, and after a short period of rehabilitation, he set about studying this disease and creating a cure for it.

However, Ilya Ilyich did not grieve for a long time, despite his attempts to commit suicide, and two years after the death of his wife, he married again. O.N. Belokopytova, his assistant, became his second wife.

life path

Like his brother, Ilya Ilyich was always a rebel, and when the education policy pursued by the tsarist government became completely unbearable, he opened his own private laboratory in protest. It happened in 1886 in Odessa. It was the first Russian and the second bacteriological station in the world, where research was carried out to combat infectious diseases. Despite the fact that he was doing well in Russia, a year later he left for Paris and joined the work of his friend, chemist and microbiologist, Louis Pasteur. He worked in his laboratory at the university opened by Pasteur. In 1905, Mechnikov took the post of deputy director of this educational institution.

The scientist spent the rest of his life in Paris, but despite this, he always remembered where his homeland was and visited Russia with pleasure.

In 1911, he led the expedition of the Pasteur Institute to the outbreak of plague in Russia, where he tried not only to figure out the treatment of this disease, but also wanted to find means of protection against tuberculosis. In addition, Mechnikov corresponded regularly with other Russian scientists and even published his work in local journals.

In total, Ilya Ilyich lived for 71 years. He died in Paris on July 15, 1916, following several myocardial infarctions.

As a true scientist and fighter for the development of science, he bequeathed his body to the university for medical research, followed by cremation. His ashes were laid to rest on the territory of the Pasteur Institute, which became a real home for the scientist.

The most important discoveries:

1879 - discovered pathogens of insect mycoses.

1866-1886 - became the founder of comparative and evolutionary embryology.

1882 - proposed a new theory of the origin of multicellular animals, which was called the "Phagocytella theory".

1882 - discovered the phenomenon of phagocytosis.

1892 - developed a comparative pathology of inflammation.

1901 - proposed the phagocytic theory of immunity, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908.

1903 - for the first time, together with E. Ru, he experimentally caused syphilis in monkeys.

He compiled a whole set of preventive and hygienic means of combating self-poisoning of the body, such as food sterilization.

On the basis of Mechnikov's teachings on orthobiosis, a new direction appeared under the name "orthobiotics".

He put forward several new ideas that surpassed the current understanding of some issues of evolution.

Became the founder of the first Russian school of immunologists, microbiologists, pathologists.

He took an active part in the creation of research institutions.

Developed various forms of combating infectious diseases.

Kharkiv, Odessa, Petersburger, Parisian. A man who twice unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Russian and French Nobel laureate. Pasteur's heir. A man whose discovery helped make transparent starfish larvae. All this is Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov.

Mechnikov-student

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Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908 (together with Paul Ehrlich). The wording of the Nobel Committee: "For their work on immunity" (in recognition of their work on immunity).

Our today Nobel laureate– a special person both for our rubric and for the author. Firstly, this is the second Nobel laureate from Russia and the last "our" laureate in the field of physiology and medicine - for more than a hundred years Russia has not been able to boast of new successes in this area. And secondly, he made a significant part of his scientific career in my native Odessa, and it is his name that the university where I studied bears. So, get acquainted - Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov.

In fact, if the Mechnikovs were more strict about their surname and their roots, then the Odessa National University would now bear the name of Spafaria. The fact is that Ilya Ilyich came from an old Moldavian boyar family. His ancestor was Nicolae Milescu-Spafari (Spetaru), a prominent Russian diplomat, theologian, traveler, multilingual translator, geographer, head of the embassy of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in China.

Monument to Nikolay Spafariy

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Spătaru, translated from Romanian, means "having a sword, a swordsman" - well, the family on the territory Russian Empire It seemed easier to have a Russian surname.

The father of the future Nobel laureate, Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov, was a guards officer and a Kharkov landowner (more precisely, his estate was located in the village of Ivanovka, Kupyansky district, Kharkov province). Mom, Emilia Lvovna, nee Nevakhovich, was from Warsaw. Her father is considered the founder of a whole trend - Russian-Jewish literature. By the way, Ilya Ilyich's uncles were also writers, and Uncle Misha was generally Boris Grachevsky of the 19th century - he published the comic magazine Yeralash. As a result, literature will always accompany Mechnikov. So, he will be quite familiar with Leo Tolstoy, and his brother, Ivan Ilyich Mechnikov, a former Tula prosecutor, is well known to us from Tolstoy's almost documentary story The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

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It is impossible not to mention one more older brother of our hero, Lev Ilyich, who went down in history as a Swiss geographer and publicist. Yes, yes, having studied in St. Petersburg as a lawyer, the young man went to fight under the banner of Garibaldi, became an anarchist, settled in Clarens and died at the age of 50 from emphysema.

Lev Mechnikov

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It was in such an environment that our hero was formed. I must say that he was generally a very elevated person and knew how to love. He twice tried to commit suicide when his wives were dying. The first time, fortunately, he drank too much morphine, and he vomited - but the first wife had indeed died of tuberculosis by that time. The second suicide turned out to be more "happy": when his young wife, Olga Belokopytova, fell ill with typhus, Mechnikov injected himself with relapsing fever bacteria. Both survived, and Olga Nikolaevna outlived her husband by 27 years and lived to be 86 years old.

But back to young Ilya. He graduated from the Kharkiv Lyceum with a gold medal and at the age of 16 had already written a scientific article criticizing the textbook on geology, according to which he happened to study. In 1862, in Kharkov, it was believed that studying abroad was more prestigious. The means allowed, and the young man, who had already chosen biology as a field of scientific activity, decides that he will go to study cytology, which was then fashionable, in Würzburg. True, he arrived at the university six weeks before the start of classes, and only in Germany did he realize that he was not very good at German. The young man was frightened and returned home, where he entered Kharkov University. With him from Europe, the young man brought a Russian translation of Darwin (I wonder where he found it there!), And since then he has become an ardent admirer of the theory of evolution.

But in Kharkov, he decided not to stay long and completed a four-year university course in the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in two years. Thus, he "carved out" three years for himself to study animal embryology in different parts of Europe - from the island of Helgoland in the North Sea to Naples, where he met another young Russian scientist - zoologist Alexander Kovalevsky. Together they made the first "real" scientific work: have shown that the germ layers of metazoan embryos are homologous (showing structural correspondence), as should be the case for forms related by a common origin. At the age of 22, Mechnikov became a laureate of the honorary award of Karl Ernst von Baer. Then he defended his doctoral dissertation on the embryonic development of crustaceans and fish and became a lecturer at the prestigious St. Petersburg University.

Alexander Kovalevsky

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For six years he taught anatomy and zoology there, and then, having gone on an anthropological expedition to measure the skulls of Kalmyks, he was elected assistant professor at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa. The story was unpleasant: Sechenov recommended Mechnikov for the post of professor at the Military Medical Academy, but he was voted out. Indignant, Sechenov, together with Mechnikov (and at the same time with Kovalevsky) were offended and waved to Odessa.

In the South Palmyra, Mechnikov liked it more than in the North: warmth, sea, girls. However, Mechnikov moved to Odessa already married - in 1869 in St. Petersburg he married Lyudmila Feodorovich. But it was in Odessa that she died (in 1873), and it was there that Ilya Ilyich first tried to kill himself, and having survived, he decided to devote himself to the fight against diseases and tuberculosis.

It was here that he met his companion for the rest of his life, student Olga Belokopytova, who became not only a beloved wife, but also a faithful assistant.

However, the blood of the elder Mechnikov the anarchist made itself felt in Odessa as well. In 1881, the Narodnaya Volya killed the reformer Tsar Alexander II, being firmly convinced that in the end it would get better. As a result, everyone got Alexander III and tightening the screws. Mechnikov in 1882, in protest, resigned from his professorship at the university and left for a while in Messina, in Italy. It was there, in his own words, that his scientific life turned upside down: he left as a zoologist, and became a pathologist.

The coast of the Mediterranean Sea played a major role in the discovery of human immunity. The Mechnikovs rented a small house near Messina, and Ilya Ilyich "without straightening his back" studied the inhabitants of the sea: by that time he had already discovered intracellular digestion in protozoa (amoebae), and hoped to find it in more complex animals.

The best model animal was the starfish larva: it is transparent. Mechnikov came up with the idea of ​​introducing carmine dye into the larvae - and saw how some wandering cells "eat" carmine grains. It occurred to him that these cells should form the basis of immunity, destroying foreign bodies and microorganisms that have entered the body. To test his theory, Mechnikov plucked a thorn from a rose in the garden and stuck it into a starfish larva. The next morning, he saw that the splinter was all surrounded by wandering cells - phagocytes.

Price Realized: $59

Lot description: METCHNIKOFF, ELIE. 1845-1916. L'Immunite dans les Maladies Infectiouses. Paris: Masson & Cie, 1901. ix, 601 pp. Illustrated with 45 color figures throughout the text. 8vo (240x155 mm). Contemporary quarter black morocco over blue Turkish marbled paper boards, gilt lettered and decorated spine. Ownership stamp to title-page, somewhat toned, otherwise internally clean, covers with some wear to extremities and a few stray marks, otherwise an excellent copy. First edition of Elie Metchnikoff’s most important work, in which he explains his theory on lactic-acid bacteria, for which this Russian zoologist and microbiologist received (with Paul Ehrlich) the 1908 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Garrison & Morton, 2555. PMM402(mentioned)

Care: $59 (RUB 4,409). Bonhams auction. Fine Books and Manuscripts. February 18, 2007. Los Angeles. Lot number 111.

Metchnikoff E. L "immunite dans les Maladies Infectieues.Paris, Masson & C-ie, editeurs Libraires de L "Academie de medecine, 1901. IX, 600, . 45 color illustrations in the text. In the p / c binding of the era with embossed on the spine. 24x17 cm. The first edition of the famous work book collectors of priority editions all over the world appreciate this particular edition, but it is better to have in the collection the edition in Russian, which came out two years later.

"Immunity in infectious diseases" by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, professor at the Pasteur Institute. Translation of the work "L" immunite dans les Maladies Infectieues "into Russian, edited by the author. With 45 colored drawings in the text. St. Petersburg, edition of K. L. Ricker, 1903. IV, 604, VII. With col. ill. The first edition of the main work of I.I. Mechnikov (1845-1916) in Russian, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1908.

Mechnikov,Ilya Ilya h (fr. Elie Metchnikoff; 1845, p. Ivanovka, Kharkov province- 1916, Paris) - Russian and French biologist (microbiologist, cytologist, embryologist, immunologist, physiologist and pathologist). Laureate Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1908 ). One of the founders of evolutionary embryology , discoverer phagocytosis and intracellular digestion, creator of the comparative pathology of inflammation, phagocytic theory of immunity, phagocytella theories, founder of scientific gerontology.Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov was born in his father's estate Ivanovka, Kupyansky district, Kharkov province, in the family of a guards officer, landowner Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov (1810-1878) and Emilia Lvovna Mechnikova (nee Nevakhovich, 1814-1879). Parents were introduced by the brother of Emilia Lvovna - a colleague of Ilya Ivanovich. On the paternal side, Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov came from an ancient Moldavian boyar family . Mother - Emilia Lvovna Nevakhovich, a native Warsaw - daughter of a famous Jewish publicist and educator Leib Noyekhovich (Lev Nikolaevich) Nevakhovich(1776-1831), who is considered the founder of the so-called Russian-Jewish literature (his book “The Cry of the Daughter of Jewish ", St. Petersburg, 1803). Brothers of Emilia Nevakhovich:Mikhail Lvovich Nevakhovich(1817-1850) - cartoonist, publisher of Russia's first humorous collection " Yeralash "(St. Petersburg, 1846-1849); Alexander Lvovich Nevakhovich(d. 1880) - playwright, head of the repertoire of the Imperial Theaters in 1837-1856. Ivan Ilyich Mechnikov was friendly with both of his wife's brothers.Elder brother I.I. Mechnikov -Lev Ilyich Mechnikov- Swiss geographer and sociologist, anarchist , member of the national liberation movement in Italy (risorgimento ). Another older brother - Ivan Ilyich Mechnikov (1836-1881), served as the prosecutor of the Tula District Court, chairman of the Kyiv Court of Justice and became the prototype of the hero of the story L.N. Tolstoy " Death of Ivan Ilyich"(1886).Having gone bankrupt, Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov was forced to leave St. Petersburg and settle in his own estate in Ivanovka, where in 1843 his son Nicholas was born, andIlya two years later. Soon after the birth of I.I. The Mechnikov family moved to a larger house at the other end of their father's estate inPanasovka (of the same Kupyansky district), where the future scientist spent his childhood.Nikolai Mechnikov became provincial secretary for participating in the student riots of 1868-1869 inKharkov Universitywas placed under strict police surveillance.In addition to four sons, the Mechnikov family also had a daughter, Ekaterina (1834).Niece of I.I. Mechnikova (sister's daughter) - opera singer Maria Kuznetsova.

The scientific activity of I.I. Mechnikov started very early. In 1864, at the age of nineteen, having graduated from Kharkov University and already having several published works, he immediately went abroad, where he stayed for three years. There he met with representatives of foreign science and worked in the laboratories of the leading scientists of the West. There he met with his famous compatriots M.A. Bakunin, A.I. Herzen, I.M. Sechenov and A.O. Kovalevsky. During these years he made a number of significant discoveries in the field of zoology and embryology and determined both the range of his main topics and the main directions of his scientific activity. 1865 - the year of the meeting of I.I. Mechnikov with A.O. Kovalevsky in Naples - was the stage in his life that determined, perhaps, his entire further fate like a scientist. It was here, already sufficiently familiar with the Darwinian teaching from his student years, that he, under the direct influence of A.O. Kovalevsky subordinated all his work to a single idea - the proof of evolution. Main topics I.I. Mechnikov during this period of his scientific activity relate to the embryonic development of various representatives of invertebrates. Together with A.O. Kovalevsky, with whom I.I. Mechnikov, the closest, friendly relations were established, he became the founder of a special branch of biology - comparative embryology, which played and continues to play an outstanding role in the development evolutionary teaching.In Italy, I.I. Mechnikov also met and became close friends with his other great compatriot I.M. Sechenov.By the time of his return to Russia in 1867, I.I. Mechnikov, still a very young scientist, managed to do a lot. Having studied the development of cephalopods, he was the first to accurately establish in invertebrates the presence in the embryonic development of three germ layers, which are well known and studied in vertebrates. This proved the unity of development of vertebrates and invertebrates. The work on the development of cephalopods was his master's thesis, which he defended at St. Petersburg University.In addition, I.I. Mechnikov conducted a number of studies covering the development of insects. Studying ciliary worms - planarians, he made his first observation on intracellular digestion. Together with A.O. Kovalevsky in 1867, he received the Karl Baer Prize of the first degree, awarded for outstanding work in embryology. In the same year he was chosen as an assistant professor at Odessa University. But already in 1868, after successful speeches at the congress of natural scientists and doctors in St. Petersburg, he became an assistant professor at St. Petersburg University and in the same year he defended his doctoral dissertation on the development of one of the representatives of crustaceans.In the period from 1868 to 1870, I.I. Mechnikov, with brief interruptions, again worked abroad, mainly in Naples and Messina, studying the development of sponges, coelenterates, echinoderms, ascidians, and insects. He made a number of significant discoveries and established many important generalizations about the unity of origin of various systematic groups of animals.In 1870 I.I. Mechnikov was elected a professor at Odessa University and held this position until 1882. This period of I.I. Mechnikov is full of the most intense work and deep experiences, both personal and social. He took the death of his first wife, who died in 1873, hard. After the rejection of one of the requirements of the progressive group of professors I.I. Mechnikov submitted his resignation and left the university.Despite, however, the extremely unfavorable situation in Odessa, I.I. Mechnikov managed in these years to make many remarkable scientific discoveries, conclusions and generalizations. Continuing research in the field of comparative embryology, he made generalizing conclusions and, in particular, expressed his theory of "parenchymella", which is an essential stage in the development of the theory of the origin of multicellular animals. According to this theory, multicellular animals descend from an extinct ancestor - a creature in the structure of which there were only two parts: a layer of outer cells and an inner part, consisting of a continuous mass of cells capable of capturing and digesting food particles - "parenchyma". Such a hypothetical animal I.I. Mechnikov and called "parenchymella", and later - "phagocytella".His theory of parenchymella I.I. Mechnikov contrasted E. Haeckel's well-known "theory of gastrea", according to which the hypothetical "gastrea" was recognized as a primitive, initial form for multicellular animals - a creature built from two layers of cells and possessing a gastrointestinal, gastric, cavity.Having established a more primitive form in the embryonic development of some invertebrates, I.I. Mechnikov concluded that the original ancestor of multicellular animals must have been more primitively organized than Haeckel's Gastrea. Confirmation of his theory I.I. Mechnikov saw in an animal from the group of worms he discovered - a planarian, which had a continuous mass of cells that digested food in place of the intestinal cavity, as well as in a special flagellated colonial animal, discovered later by S. Kent, which in many structural features coincided with the hypothetical phagocytella.For that period in the development of evolutionary doctrine, when the establishment of genealogical (kindred) relationships of organic forms was required to prove the correctness of its main provisions, the theory of phagocytella was of outstanding importance. It also had a great influence on the modern resolution of the question of the origin of multicellular animals.In the same period of his work, I.I. Mechnikov paid special attention to the development of the problem of intracellular digestion and, in this regard, created a special branch of modern biology - experimental morphology, the founder of which, along with A.O. Kovalevsky, admittedly, he is. In those same years, I.I. Mechnikov discovered intracellular digestion in free, mobile cells of the connective tissue - the so-called amoebocytes - invertebrates. Seeing this is the firsta link in the chain of observations and thoughts that led him to the creation of the doctrine of phagocytosis and the foundations of the doctrine of the protective properties of blood.In the autumn of 1882, I.I. Mechnikov went to Italy and worked in Messina. This autumn and spring of 1883 was a significant stage in his scientific life. Studying the larvae starfish and specially their mobile free cells - amoebocytes, endowed with the ability to digest the organic particles they swallow, I.I. Mechnikov thought about what role these cells can play in the body, in addition to participating in the processes of digestion. He came up with the idea that the significance of these cells may lie in their protective role as elements that are able to capture, digest and thereby neutralize foreign bodies that are harmful to the body.Brilliant in their simplicity and persuasiveness, the experiments of I.I. Mechnikov managed to confirm his assumption. Foreign bodies artificially introduced into the body of the larvae were captured or enveloped by the amoebocytes that gathered around them and eventually turned out to be either digested by them or isolated. Based on the ability of mobile cells to absorb (“devour”) foreign particles, I.I. Mechnikov called them phagocytes. This term has become, as you know, just as popular and generally accepted as such well-known concepts as cell, tissue, etc.These experiments turned out to be a turning point in the work of I.I. Mechnikov. Here is what he himself wrote about it:

"In Messina, a turning point took place in my scientific life. Before that, a zoologist - I immediately became a pathologist. I got on a new road, which became the main content of my subsequent activity."

In a whole series of works of the subsequent period, I.I. Mechnikov showed that phenomena quite similar to those he observed in his experiments on starfish larvae are present in all types of animals that have mesodermal tissues, i.e., tissues that develop from an intermediate germ layer - the mesoderm. In complexly organized animals, these tissues primarily include blood and the so-called connective tissue, which include cellular elements capable of phagocytizing and digesting captured organic particles. In higher animals, for example, in all vertebrates, the most typical phagocytes are white blood cells - leukocytes. They are the main "protective" cells in these animals, with the help of which the body isolates and neutralizes foreign bodies that penetrate into it, including pathogens of infectious diseases - pathogenic microbes.The first contours of his teaching on the protective factors of the body I.I. Mechnikov presented in a report at the congress of natural scientists and doctors in Odessa in 1883. This report "On the healing powers of the body" is a significant milestone, marking the appearance in the treasury of human knowledge of one of the remarkable achievements of science.Starting from 1883, I.I. Mechnikov devoted almost all his attention to the doctrine of phagocytosis and turned to a detailed and comprehensive study of inflammatory processes, infectious diseases and their pathogens - pathogenic microbes. In these studies, which constituted a whole series of classical works, I.I. Mechnikov remained faithful to evolutionary principles and the comparative method. To confirm his conclusions, he drew on data drawn from the study of infections in various representatives of the animal world - from protozoa to higher vertebrates. So, the consistent course of research by I.I. Mechnikov prepared a new branch of biology and medicine - comparative pathology.Simultaneously with the work on the substantiation and development of the phagocytic theory, I. I. Mechnikov did not leave his former topics on the embryology of invertebrates. Using his two stays abroad by the sea, in 1884 and 1885 he continued to study the development of echinoderms and jellyfish. These studies, in which II Mechnikov finally formulated his theory of phagocytella, formed the material for a number of articles and monographs on the development of jellyfish, which are, by all accounts, classic works in the field of comparative and evolutionary embryology.In 1886, I. I. Mechnikov became the head of the first Odessa bacteriological station in Russia. But the activity of the station could not be developed as it should be because of the obstacles placed by inert, and sometimes hostile to its work, tsarist officials. Desperate for the possibility of fruitful work in Russia, I. I. Mechnikov decided to leave his homeland and seek refuge abroad.In 1887 he undertook a trip abroad in order to choose the most suitable place for work. During this trip, he participated in the Vienna International Congress of Hygienists, which brought together the most prominent bacteriologists of the time. Taking advantage of the invitation of Pasteur, who agreed to organize an independent laboratory for I.I. Mechnikov, he moved in the fall of 1888 to Paris, where he worked until his death.The twenty-eight-year Parisian period of the life of I.I. Mechnikov is a period of maturity, general recognition and world fame.The first years of this period were full of heated polemics with opponents of the phagocytic theory, mainly German scientists (Koch, Buchner, Behring, Pfeiffer). The latter opposed Mechnikov's phagocytic or cellular theory with the so-called humoral theory, which put forward not cells, but specific chemical substances of body fluids, as the main factors in the body's defense reactions.To confirm the correctness of their views, I.I. Mechnikov, already with a whole group of his students and collaborators, studied in detail the phenomena of immunity to infectious diseases and proved that phagocytes play a decisive role in these phenomena as well. His research includes a wide variety of infectious diseases - typhus, cholera, plague, tuberculosis, tetanus and others - and their pathogens. In the course of these works, I.I. Mechnikov and his school manage to resolve a number of particular problems of bacteriology and epidemiology, which are of great practical importance and underlie modern methods fight against infectious diseases.Laboratory I.I. Mechnikov in Paris quickly became the center of advanced medical thought, which doctors and scientists aspired to from all over the world. Around I.I. Mechnikov, talented collaborators and students gathered, from whom the largest bacteriologists and immunologists (P. Roux, Borde, and the Russian scientist Bezredka) grew up. Many Russian doctors also passed through Mechnikov's laboratory.In 1891 I.I. Mechnikov was elected an honorary doctor of the University of Cambridge and participated in the London International Congress, where he presented a summary of the results of his research and very successfully argued with opponents of his theory.In the same year, at the Pasteur Institute, I.I. Mechnikov conducted his remarkable cycle of lectures on inflammation, published the following year in 1892 as a separate book entitled Lectures on the Comparative Pathology of Inflammation. The appearance of this book in Russian and French was one of the remarkable events in the history of biology and medicine. Physicians and scientists around the world faced a coherent system of views and methods, which was destined to radically rebuild a number of established provisions and open up the broadest prospects for medical science. The significance of this book is far from exhausted by the fact that I.I. Mechnikov, on the basis of his own works and critical revision of numerous literary data, created and substantiated a new coherent doctrine of inflammation. Having illuminated in a new way one of the essential chapters of general pathology - the doctrine of inflammation, I.I. Mechnikov, at the same time, created and firmly substantiated a new idea of ​​pathological processes as reactions of the body.In his "Lectures" I.I. Mechnikov, with exceptional completeness and brilliance, showed in what ways, from primitive animals of the Don and more complexly organized, the evolutionary complication of inflammatory processes occurred. The comparative evolutionary method allowed him to reveal in a complex set of phenomena that characterize inflammation in higher animals and humans in general, its main factors common to all animals, and those additional phenomena that represent, as it were, evolutionary stratifications that developed as the organization became more complex. animals. Thus, the fruitfulness of the comparative method was demonstrated for the first time with complete clarity and exhaustive persuasiveness.All these works by I.I. Mechnikov, as a biologist and pathologist, made huge changes in the general understanding of painful phenomena and deeply affected the very foundations of general pathology. General theoretical conclusions of I.I. Mechnikov, according to which morbid phenomena are not something absolutely divorced from the so-called "normal" physiological properties and manifestations of the body, created a solid foundation for overcoming the elements of scholasticism and metaphysics in theoretical medicine.In 1894 I.I. Mechnikov participated in the international congress of bacteriologists in Budapest and, armed with the richest material from his new studies of the phenomena of immunity in infectious diseases, again successfully defended his phagocytic theory.Time span between 1894 and 1897 filled with intensive work by I. I. Mechnikov and his entire laboratory, in connection with new discoveries by supporters of the humoral theory in the field of immunology, which seemed to undermine the foundations of the theory of phagocytosis. However, carefully designed experiments and numerous observations made it possible for I.I. Mechnikov and his colleagues to show that those factors in the phenomena of immunity, which at first glance have nothing to do with phagocytes, nevertheless turn out to be somehow connected with their vital activity.In 1897 I.I. Mechnikov spoke at a congress in Moscow with reports on the plague issue and on the results of his work on phagocytic reactions against microbial poisons - toxins. These studies, devoted to the study of toxins of various microbes that cause infectious diseases, the mechanism of their action and the reactions of the body in response to this action, were, as it were, the last final series of works that allowed I. I. Mechnikov to sum up his many years of research on immunity. This result was summed up by him in a report at the international congress in Paris in 1900 and in his famous work "Immunity in Infectious Diseases", which was published in 1901.This book, which I.I. Mechnikov considered as an inseparable link in the chain of his works in the field of comparative pathology and a direct continuation of the book on inflammation, contains a coherent system of views and ideas that have had a huge impact on all subsequent work in the field of immunology and are included as the main component in the modern doctrine of immunity.Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the attention of I.I. Mechnikov is attracted by the issues of old age and death, to the resolution of which he seeks to approach as a biologist and pathologist. In this regard, there is an interest in the study of the nature of man and his specific features as a special creature in the general zoological chain. The result of this interest was a series of works that provided material for the book "Etudes on the Nature of Man".In works devoted to the causes of aging and possible ways to overcome premature senile decrepitude, I. I. Mechnikov especially puts forward the poisoning of the body by toxins of microbes that are constantly present and developing in the intestines. Studies of the intestinal flora of adults, children and animals led I.I. Mechnikov to the idea that it is quite possible to regulate the intestinal flora with appropriate diets and thus minimize intoxication leading to premature aging.Being a convinced atheist and materialist, I.I. Mechnikov argued with great persuasiveness that the power of progressive knowledge - and, first of all, medicine - will eventually allow human life to be restructured in such a way that death will occur only when the "life instinct" naturally and imperceptibly passes into the "death instinct". These optimistic thoughts, developed in the book "Etudes of Optimism", published in 1907, like the whole optimistic worldview, so characteristic of I.I. Mechnikov in the last third of his life, were replaced by the pessimistic mood that owned him in his youth.In 1908 I.I. Mechnikov, together with the infectious disease specialist and immunologist P. Ehrlich, received the international Nobel Prize. This was the reason for the travel of I.I. Mechnikov to Sweden (the Nobel Prize was awarded in Stockholm) and to Russia, which he undertook in 1909 and gave him the opportunity to meet his brilliant compatriot, the writer L.N. Tolstoy.In 1911 I.I. Mechnikov leads an expedition organized by him to study tuberculosis among the population of the Kalmyk steppes. This expedition, which included, in addition to I.I. Mechnikova, a number of outstanding scientists, collected extremely valuable material and gave I.I. Mechnikov the opportunity to draw very important conclusions about the natural immunization of the population against tuberculosis.In 1913, a book by I.I. Mechnikov "Forty years of searching for a rational worldview", in which he collected all his works general, starting with various articles about "disharmonies" in human nature. This whole series of works illustrates with great clarity his path from early pessimism to bright materialistic optimism. middle age and is an excellent monument to the ideological growth of one of the largest representatives of modern science.In 1915, I.I. Mechnikov fell ill and died on July 15, 1916.