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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
Russian embryologist, bacteriologist and immunologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov was born on May 3 (15), 1845 in the village of Ivanovka, located in Ukraine, not far from Kharkov. His father, Ilya Ivanovich, an officer in the tsarist guard in St. Petersburg, had lost most of his wife's dowry and family property at cards before moving to the Ukrainian estate. Mechnikov's mother, nee Emilia Nevakhovich, was the daughter of Lev Nevakhovich, a wealthy Jewish writer. She did everything possible to ensure that Ilya (the last of her five children and the fourth son in a row) chose a career as a scientist. An inquisitive boy with a pronounced interest in the history of natural science, Mechnikov brilliantly studied at the Kharkov Lyceum. Already in the sixth grade, he translated Grove's book Interaction of Physical Forces from French. From a young age, he learned to appreciate and love the book. Ilya was greatly impressed by Lomonosov's work "On the Layers of the Earth". An article criticizing a textbook on geology, which he wrote at the age of 16, was published in a Moscow journal. In 1862, after graduating from high school with a gold medal, he decides to study cell structure at the University of Würzburg. Succumbing to the mood, he goes to Germany, not even knowing that classes will begin only after 6 weeks. Finding himself alone in a foreign city without knowledge of the German language, Mechnikov decides to return and enters Kharkov University. He brings with him the Russian translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published three years earlier. Ilya read this book with the greatest interest. She answered the most important questions biologists were interested in. He was simply fascinated by the coherent theory of evolutionary development. But Mechnikov not only admires, but also delves into every line of the book. He wrote a review of "Natural Selection", where he criticizes some of its erroneous positions. In the autumn of 1863, unexpectedly for everyone, Ilya submits an application with a request to expel him from the university. No one could understand the reasons for such an act. Everything turned out to be "simple": Mechnikov decided to speed up the learning process and, having prepared himself, completed the four-year university course in the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in two years! In the summer of 1864, Mechnikov went to the island of Helgoland in the North Sea to prepare his Ph.D. work. The island attracted the young scientist's attention because of the abundance of marine animals washed ashore, which he needed for research. Over the next three years, Mechnikov studied the embryology of invertebrates. Already familiar with the structural features of representatives of the lower orders of the animal world (worms, sponges and other simple invertebrates), Mechnikov realized that, in accordance with Darwin's theory, more highly organized animals should show similarities in structure with the low-organized animals from which they descended. On September 5, a large group of zoologists arrived from Helgoland in Giessen for a congress of naturalists. A day later I arrived in Giessen and Mechnikov. The appearance of the young man at the congress caused general surprise. The learned assembly became alert when Mechnikov appeared on the podium. The Russian, although he spoke annoyingly loudly, was very sensible about facts unknown even to such a society of professors from the life of nematodes - roundworms. He argued that nematodes, according to his research, constitute a special, independent group of animals in the evolutionary chain. The assembly applauded Mechnikov when he finished his message. But none of the high-ranking listeners knew at what price science was given to him. After the hunger strike on Helgoland, Ilya also went hungry in Giessen. During the break between meetings of the congress, the delegates went to a restaurant, and Ilya quietly disappeared to eat somewhere for a penny. Only with the help of the famous surgeon Pirogov, Ilya Mechnikov managed to become a professorial fellow. He received a scholarship for two years - one thousand six hundred rubles a year. For the first time, the opportunity opened up to devote himself entirely to science. Mechnikov began to work in the laboratory of Rudolf Leuckart in Giessen. Investigating the reproduction of some roundworms, Mechnikov discovered in these animals the phenomenon of heterogony previously unknown to science, that is, the alternation of generations with intermittent forms of reproduction. Generations leading a parasitic way of life, as was known, are hermaphrodites (bisexual), and forms that live freely outside the host organism, as Metchnikov discovered, turned out to be dioecious. This discovery was of great importance: it shed light on the relationship between the phenomena of reproduction of nematodes and their way of life. In 1865, Mechnikov met the young Russian zoologist Alexander Kovalevsky and conducted experiments with him in Naples. The work in which they showed that the germ layers of metazoans are essentially homologous (showing structural conformity), as they should be in forms related by a common origin, won them the Baer Prize. Mechnikov by this time was only 22 years old. At the same time, due to excessive overexertion, his eyes began to hurt. This ailment bothered him for the next fifteen years and prevented him from working with the microscope. In 1867, having defended his dissertation on the embryonic development of fish and crustaceans, Mechnikov received his doctorate from Petersburg University, where he later taught zoology and comparative anatomy. Ilya Ilyich had a hard time enduring his loneliness in big, noisy Petersburg. The only bright spot in this difficult life was the Beketov family. Ilya Ilyich visited them more and more often. There he constantly met with Lyudmila Vasilievna Fedorovich. Friendly conversations, the caring attentiveness of a young girl gave Ilya Ilyich the warmth that he so needed. Mechnikov decided to marry Lyudmila, although by that time she already had tuberculosis. And then came the day of the wedding. Joy could not improve the health of the bride. Due to shortness of breath on his legs, he did not have the strength to walk the distance from the carriage to the altar in the church. Pale, with a waxy face, Lyudmila Vasilievna was carried into the church in an armchair. Thus began the married life of Ilya Ilyich. Gentle care for her beloved, careful care and treatment could not improve the health of Lyudmila Vasilievna. Days of stubborn struggle with illness and want passed. A lot of money was needed, and with all the energy that he was capable of, Ilya Ilyich tried to find means to improve his official, and consequently, financial situation. In the winter of 1870, Mechnikov began to read zoology to students at the university in Odessa. In addition to reading the course, Mechnikov was still engaged in translations and wrote articles. However, despite treatment abroad, his wife was getting worse. Lyudmila Vasilievna died in Madeira on April 20, 1873. By the time his wife died, Mechnikov's eyesight had deteriorated greatly, which called into question the pursuit of science. He made an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide by drinking morphine. Fortunately, the dose of morphine was so high that he vomited. But life heals. As a teacher at Odessa University, he met a young student, Olga Belokopytova, thirteen years his junior, and fell in love again. In February 1875, their wedding took place. When Olga contracted typhoid fever, Mechnikov again tried to commit suicide, this time by injecting relapsing fever pathogens. Having been seriously ill, he, however, recovered: the disease reduced the proportion of pessimism so characteristic of him and caused an improvement in vision. Although Mechnikov had no children from his second wife, after the death of Olga's parents, who passed away one after another within a year, the couple became the guardians of her two brothers and three sisters. Ilya Ilyich was not mistaken in choosing a girlfriend of life. Olga Nikolaevna did everything so that he could devote himself entirely to the service of science. For his part, Mechnikov helped Olga Nikolaevna achieve what she dreamed of in her youth. Olga Nikolaevna wrote with gratitude that Ilya Ilyich, "... standing a hundred times higher than me, not only did not suppress my personality, which was then still flexible and not established, but, on the contrary, always treated it with care ... His liveliness, communicative gaiety , curiosity, ability to organize everything perfectly made him an incomparable comrade and leader.Working with him was the greatest blessing, because, generously sharing his thoughts, communicating his passion and interest in research, he at the same time created an atmosphere of close communication and the search for knowledge and truth, and it made the humblest worker feel that he was participating in the fulfillment of a lofty goal ... " Odessa was the perfect place to study marine animals. Mechnikov was loved by students, but growing social and political unrest in Russia oppressed him. Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the reactionary actions of the government intensified, and Mechnikov, having resigned, moved to the Italian Messina. “In Messina,” he later recalled, “a turning point took place in my scientific life. Before that, a zoologist, I immediately became a pathologist.” The discovery, which dramatically changed the course of his life, was associated with observations of starfish larvae. Watching these transparent animals, Mechnikov noticed how mobile cells surround and engulf foreign bodies, similar to what happens during an inflammatory response in humans. If the foreign body was small enough, wandering cells, which he called phagocytes, could completely engulf the alien. Mechnikov was not the first scientist to observe white blood cells in animals being devoured by invading organisms, including bacteria. At the same time, it was believed that the process of absorption serves mainly to spread the foreign substance throughout the body through the circulatory system. Mechnikov adhered to a different explanation, since he looked at what was happening through the eyes of an embryologist. In starfish larvae, motile phagocytes not only surround and engulf the invading object, but also resorb and destroy other tissues that the body no longer needs. Human leukocytes and motile starfish phagocytes are embryologically homologous, since they originate from the mesoderm. From this, Mechnikov concluded that leukocytes, like phagocytes, actually perform a protective or sanitary function. He further demonstrated the activity of phagocytes in transparent water fleas. “According to this hypothesis,” Mechnikov later wrote, “the disease should be considered as a struggle between pathogenic agents - microbes that came from outside - and phagocytes of the body itself. A cure will mean the victory of phagocytes, and an inflammatory reaction will be a sign of their action, sufficient to prevent the attack of microbes. " However, the ideas of Mechnikov were not accepted by the scientific community for a number of years. In 1886, Mechnikov returned to Odessa to head the newly organized Bacteriological Institute, where he studied the action of dog, rabbit, and monkey phagocytes on microbes that cause erysipelas and relapsing fever. His staff also worked on vaccines against cholera in chickens and anthrax in sheep. Persecuted by sensation-hungry newsmen and local doctors, who reproached Mechnikov for his lack of medical education, he left Russia for the second time in 1887. A meeting with Louis Pasteur in Paris led the great French scientist to offer Mechnikov to run a new laboratory at the Pasteur Institute. Mechnikov worked there for the next 28 years, continuing his research on phagocytes. Mechnikov lived for many years in Paris on Rue Dutot near his laboratory. He was constantly busy with improving and expanding the work of the Pasteur Institute, popularizing his scientific works. He wrote articles for journals, lectured on bacteriology for physicians at the Pasteur Institute, talked to journalists; willingly shared information with people who showed interest in this field of knowledge. Science never remained a dead letter for Mechnikov. Dedicated to his work with all his heart, Ilya Ilyich did not tolerate laxity, they worked together in his laboratory, the aspirations of all were focused on solving common problems. For many years in a row, Mechnikov spent the summer at his dacha in Sevres, and in 1903 he moved there for permanent residence. Ilya Ilyich was then fifty-seven years old. The older he became, the more life-affirming and joyful his attitude became. The Pasteur Institute was constantly in need of funds. Many of the studies required expensive equipment and animals for experiments, and there was not enough money. Private charity is a very fickle thing. How many humiliations had to be endured in order to get a miserable handout for science from the rich! In 1908, the lonely elderly rich man Ifla-Osiris, before his death, bequeathed to the Pasteur Institute his entire fortune - twenty-eight million francs. It became possible to improve laboratory equipment, and for the first time the scientific director of the Pasteur Institute, Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, began to receive remuneration for his work! Not everything was simple in science either. The dramatic pictures of the battles of phagocytes, which Metchnikov painted in his scientific reports, were met with hostility by adherents of the humoral theory of immunity, who believed that certain blood substances, and not leukocytes contained in the blood, played a central role in the destruction of "aliens". Mechnikov, while recognizing the existence of the antibodies and antitoxins described by Emil von Behring, vigorously defended his phagocytic theory. Together with colleagues, he also studied syphilis, cholera and other infectious diseases. Mechnikov's work in Paris contributed to many fundamental discoveries concerning the nature of the immune response. One of his students, Jules Bordet, showed the role played by complement (a substance found in normal blood serum and activated by the antigen-antibody complex) in destroying microbes, making them more susceptible to phagocytes. Mechnikov's most important contribution to science was methodological in nature: the scientist's goal was to study "immunity in infectious diseases ... from the standpoint of cellular physiology." When ideas about the role of phagocytosis and the function of leukocytes became more widespread among immunologists, Mechnikov turned to other ideas, taking up, in particular, the problems of aging and death. In 1903, he published a book on "orthobiosis", or the ability to "live right" - "Etudes on Human Nature", which discusses the importance of food and justifies the need to consume large quantities of fermented milk products, or yogurt, fermented with a bulgarian stick. Mechnikov's name is associated with a popular commercial method for making kefir, but the scientist did not receive any money for this. Together with Paul Ehrlich, Mechnikov was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their work on immunity". As K. Merner from the Karolinska Institute noted in his welcoming speech, “after the discoveries of Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, the main question of immunology remained unclear: “How does the body manage to defeat pathogenic microbes that, having attacked it, were able to gain a foothold and begin to develop?” Trying to find an answer to this question, Merner continued, Mechnikov laid the foundation for modern research in ... immunology and had a profound influence on the entire course of its development. The trip to Stockholm turned into a triumphal procession. Festivities in honor of Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov followed one after another. Mechnikov was ironic about this: "The Nobel Prize, like a magic wand, for the first time revealed to the world the significance of my modest works." In 1909, the scientist returned to his homeland, where he continued to study intestinal microbes and typhoid fever. Mechnikov died in Paris on July 2 (15), 1916, at the age of seventy-one, after several myocardial infarctions. Author: Samin D.K.
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