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
Wikimedia Commons
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's Nobel laureate is 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
Wikimedia Commons
Spătaru, translated from Romanian, means “having a sword, swordsman” - well, it seemed easier for a family on the territory of the Russian Empire 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.
Wikimedia Commons
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
Wikimedia Commons
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 funds 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 Kharkiv 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 did the first "real" scientific work: they showed that the germ layers of the embryos of multicellular animals are homologous (demonstrating structural correspondence), as it should be in forms related by a common origin. At the age of 22, Mechnikov became the 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
Wikimedia Commons
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.
The H Obel Prize is an international award that has been presented annually since 1901 for outstanding contributions to science, literature and society. The first prize in the world of its kind.
“All my movable and immovable property should be converted by my executors into liquid values, and the capital thus collected should be placed in a reliable bank. The income from investments should belong to the fund, which will distribute them annually in the form of bonuses to those who during the previous year have brought the greatest benefit to mankind ... The indicated percentages must be divided into five equal parts, which are intended: one part - to the one who makes the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; the other to the one who makes the most important discovery or improvement in the field of chemistry; the third - to the one who will make the most important discovery in the field of physiology or medicine; the fourth - to the one who will create the most outstanding literary work of an idealistic direction; fifth - to the one who has made the most significant contribution to the rallying of nations, the abolition of slavery or the reduction of the existing armies and the promotion of peace congresses ... My particular desire is that the nationality of candidates should not be taken into account when awarding prizes ... "
Kultura.RF compiled its own list of the most famous laureates.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936)
Nobel Prize in 1904 "for his work on the physiology of digestion, expanding and changing the understanding of the vital aspects of this issue"
The first Russian Nobel laureate, an outstanding scientist, the pride of Russian science and "the first physiologist of the world", as his colleagues called him at one of the international congresses. None of the Russian scientists of that time, even Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, received such fame abroad. Pavlov was called a "romantic, almost legendary person", "a citizen of the world", and a friend of the scientist, writer Herbert Wells, said about him: "This is the star that illuminates the world, shedding light on paths not yet explored."
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (1845–1916)
Nobel Prize 1908 for his work on immunity
The famous Russian biologist believed in the limitless possibilities of science, "which alone can lead mankind to the true path." Ilya Mechnikov is the founder of the Russian school of microbiologists and immunologists. Among his students are Alexander Bezredka, Lev Tarasevich, Daniil Zabolotny, Yakov Bardakh. Mechnikov was not only a scientist, but also a writer who left behind an extensive legacy - popular science and scientific and philosophical works, memoirs, articles, translations.
Lev Davidovich Landau (1908–1968)
Nobel Prize in 1962 "for pioneering research in the theory of condensed matter, especially liquid helium"
The outstanding Soviet scientist devoted his whole life to theoretical physics. Fascinated by science as a child, he vowed to never “smoke, drink, or marry.” The last vow did not work out: Landau was a famous womanizer. He had an inimitable sense of humor, for which he was especially adored by his students. Once at a lecture, a physicist cited his playful classification of sciences as an example, saying that "sciences are natural, unnatural and unnatural." The only non-physical theory of Lev Landau was the theory of happiness. He believed that every person should and even must be happy. To do this, the physicist deduced a simple formula that contained three parameters: work, love and communication with people.
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (1921–1989)
Nobel Prize in 1975 "For the fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace between people and the courageous struggle against the abuse of power and any form of suppression of human dignity"
The well-known Soviet physicist, one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb, public figure, dissident and human rights activist did not support the general line of the party, opposed the arms race, nuclear weapons testing and demanded the abolition of the death penalty. For which he was persecuted in the Soviet Union and was deprived of all awards, and in Sweden he received the Nobel Peace Prize ...
Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894–1984)
Nobel Prize 1978 "For basic research and discoveries in low temperature physics"
“I firmly believe in the internationality of science and believe that real science should be free from all political passions and struggles, no matter how much they try to involve it there. And I believe that the scientific work that I have been doing all my life is the property of all mankind, wherever I do it., - Peter Kapitsa wrote in 1935. The world famous physicist worked in Cambridge, was a full member of the Royal Society of London, founder of the Institute of Physical Problems, the first head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The famous physicist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe wrote about his student: "Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, who combines a brilliant experimenter, an excellent theoretician and a brilliant engineer, is one of the brightest figures in modern physics."
Despite the generous scattering of Russian literary geniuses, only five of them managed to receive the highest award.
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was nominated for the prize in 1909, but never received it. The great Russian writer, back in 1906, declared that he would have refused the Nobel Prize (both in peace and in literature) if his candidacy had won: "This will save me from a great difficulty - to dispose of this award, because any money, in my opinion, brings only evil."
Ivan Bunin (1873–1953)
Nobel Prize in 1933 "For the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated in prose a typical Russian character"
The first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. Bunin emigrated from revolutionary Russia and at that time had already lived in France for 13 years. Two of the Russian emigrant writers claimed the Nobel prize - Bunin and Merezhkovsky, and there were two camps of supporters, they made bets ... However, Ivan Alekseevich's victory, perhaps, upset the rivals, but not for long: thus, shaking hands with Bunin, Merezhkovsky's wife Zinaida Gippius said honestly: "I congratulate you and envy you." The main thing was that the award went to a Russian writer.
Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
Nobel Prize in 1958 "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for the continuation of the traditions of the great Russian epic novel"
Having learned about the award from the personal telegram of the head of the Nobel Committee, addressed to the poet and writer, Pasternak replied: "Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, embarrassed." However, the Soviet leadership received this news extremely negatively. A campaign against the poet began, and he was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize, otherwise he could lose his citizenship and be expelled from the USSR. But the delay (Pasternak did not refuse immediately, but did it a week later) turned out to be disastrous. He became a “persecuted poet” - however, he was worried not so much about himself, but about his relatives and friends, who also began to be attacked ...
Time put everything in its place. 30 years later, on December 9, 1989, Boris Pasternak's Nobel medal was solemnly presented in Stockholm to his son Yevgeny.
Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)
Nobel Prize in 1965 "For the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia"
Sholokhov should have received his award even earlier. But in 1958, the committee gave preference to the candidacy of Pasternak ... And Sholokhov was again forgotten. In 1964, the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize in Literature, saying that, in his opinion, Sholokhov deserved the prize. A year later, in 1965, 60-year-old Mikhail Sholokhov received a well-deserved award. Speaking in Stockholm, he said: “Art has a powerful power to influence the mind and heart of a person. I think that the one who directs this force to create beauty in the souls of people, for the benefit of mankind, has the right to be called an artist..
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
Nobel Prize in 1970 "For the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature"
Like Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn did not want to give up the coveted Nobel Prize. And in 1970, when the committee informed him about the award, he replied that he would definitely come for her personally. However, this was not destined to happen: the writer was threatened with deprivation of Soviet citizenship - and he did not go to Stockholm. True, he did not regret it at all. Studying the program of the gala evening, Solzhenitsyn sincerely did not understand: “How to talk about the main business of all life at the“ banquet table ”, when the tables are lined with dishes and everyone drinks, eats, talks ...”
Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996)
Nobel Prize in 1987 "for a comprehensive literary activity, characterized by clarity of thought and poetic intensity"
Prix Nobel? Oui, ma belle,- the poet joked in 1972, long before he received the prize. Unlike his brothers in the shop - Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, by the time of world recognition, the poet Brodsky had long lived and taught in America, since back in the early 1970s he was deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the country ...
They say that the news of the Nobel Prize practically did not change the expression on his face, because the poet was sure that sooner or later, the Nobel Prize would be his. When asked by a journalist whether he considers himself a Russian or an American, Brodsky replied: "I am a Jew, a Russian poet and an English essayist". In the same year, the poet's poems were first published in the USSR in the journal Novy Mir.
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 MOs 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 vaccinations (vaccination of 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.
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 future fate as 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 absolutely 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 whose structure 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 drew 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 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 developing 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 I. I. 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 which underlie modern methods of combating 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 series 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 all over 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 a critical review 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. So fruitfulness comparative method was proved for the first time with full evidence 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 painful 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 a wide variety of 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 had a huge impact on all subsequent work in the field of immunology and 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 - would eventually allow human life to be restructured in such a way that death would occur only when the "life instinct" would naturally and imperceptibly pass 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 of a general nature, starting with various articles on "disharmonies" in human nature. This whole series of works clearly illustrates his path from the pessimism of the early period to the bright materialistic optimism of the mature 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.
Paul Erlich
1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Ilya Mechnikov). The wording of the Nobel Committee: "For their work on immunity."
The era of modern medicine can be called the era of pharmacotherapy or chemotherapy, because so far it has not been possible to find a more successful method of combating pathogens than a directed (targeted) effect on a pathogen or a link in pathogenesis. And the first person who introduced this concept into medicine, having invented a “magic bullet” for syphilis, was our current hero. However, he did not receive the award for this at all. He, as all scientists of the beginning of the 20th century should be, was engaged in various things, achieving success everywhere. It is to him, in addition to the beautiful “point” in the study of blood cells, that he also owns the “side chain theory” fundamental for immunology, as well as the concept of the blood-brain barrier.
The scientist lived a not very long, but extremely eventful life. He was born into a family of an innkeeper and innkeeper from the small Polish town of Strzelin. Thanks to his cheerful disposition, Erlich easily found contact with absolutely different people, and therefore many acquaintances believed that Paul would continue his father's career. But it was not there. The boy, whose parents were not at all fond of science, fell under the influence of his paternal grandfather, who taught physics and botany at the local university. The young histologist was finally helped to develop his interest in science by his mother's cousin, bacteriologist Karl Weigert, who lured Paul into the mysterious world of living tissues and aniline dyes, with which he was one of the first to work.
Carl Weigert
Wikimedia Commons
This was partly “to blame” for the book that Erlich read when he entered the medical faculty of the University of Breslau (modern Wroclaw). It spoke of the special distribution of lead in different tissues, and the inquisitive mind of the young man immediately became interested in "the nature and methods of distribution of substances in the body and its cells," which he did not fail to do in his later years of medical education.
It is interesting that Ehrlich at universities (and he, in addition to his own, managed to study at both Starsburg and Leipzig universities) was known as a typical “loser”, just like Newton, Helmholtz, Einstein and many other “geniuses” in their time . Apparently, they thought the same thing: why waste time on something that is not interesting when it can be spent on more exciting things. Erlich's corpses and healing did not appeal in any way, but the dyes ...
During the years of study, Paul developed many new dyes with a specific affinity for various cells, and by the time he received his diploma in 1878, he was already something of himself as a scientist. The unique "vision" of the three-dimensional structure of molecules, which helped him predict the relationship of paint with certain tissues, allowed him in 1879 to publish the results of his research on the color of blood films. The researcher was then only 25 years old.
Our hero discovered everything necessary for the full existence of hematology as follows: he separated populations of white cells (agranulocytes - cells without granules, and granulocytes - cells containing specific granules in their cytoplasm), not only from each other, but also inside. Thanks to him, we know that there are lymphocytes that do not contain granules (later it turned out that they are divided into B and T and NK cells), and granulocytes, in turn, are divided into several types, among which neutrophils can be found, eosinophils and basophils.
Granulocyte
Wikimedia Commons
Erlich was attracted by another detail. In one of the Berlin clinics where he worked, no one interfered with various studies, including the staining of pathogens. So he had the idea of a "magic bullet". “If there is such a paint that stains only the fabric, then, undoubtedly, there must be one that will stain only the microbes that have entered the body,” the scientist thought. And, accordingly, if there is a paint that will color only microbes, then there must be a substance that will only be able to kill them. And, perhaps, one of the dyes can become this “killer”.
In this capacity as a "virtuoso dyer" and as chief physician of the Friedrich von Frerichs clinic of the Berlin Charité hospital, Ehrlich met Robert Koch, already famous at that time, who in 1882 discovered the causative agent of tuberculosis. He suggested to Koch an improved method for dyeing his wand (which, by the way, is still used today), which began their many years of friendship and close cooperation.
Robert Koch on a stamp commemorating the centenary of his award
Wikimedia Commons
But the trouble is: in 1888, during another experiment with a dangerous pathogen, Paul himself became infected with a bacillus, and, in addition, infected his family, which he acquired in 1883. With his wife Hedwig Pincus and two daughters, he was forced to go to Egypt for treatment, the hot and dry climate of which was the best way to get rid of the pathogen. There they lived for two years.
A holy place is never empty, and as a result of undercover intrigues, the absent Ehrlich was removed from his post at the Charite clinic, which he discovered when he returned to Berlin in 1890. Not discouraged, he continued his scientific research in his laboratory, which, fortunately, could not be appropriated until Koch offered to help and took him to his Institute of Infectious Diseases. In addition, Erlich also became a professor at the University of Berlin.
Clinic Charité
Wikimedia Commons
The "infectious" past brought him together with the discoverer of anti-diphtheria serum von Behring, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1901. Initially, however, vaccination, which was supposed to protect mice from toxins by gradually increasing doses, did not give reliable results. But Ehrlich found ways to increase the effectiveness of the sera: he advised to “enhance” it by repeatedly injecting diphtheria toxin into horses until the required concentration of antitoxin was obtained, and then helped Behring establish mass production. At the same time, the scientist began to think about the theory of "side chains".
Erlich and Behring on a postage stamp
Wikimedia Commons
“Living protoplasm must correspond to a gigantic molecule interacting with ordinary chemical molecules in the same way as the sun with the smallest meteorites. We can assume that in living protoplasm a nucleus with a special structure is responsible for specific functions inherent in the cell, and atoms and their complexes are attached to this nucleus like side chains, ”Erlich wrote.
From here came the idea of specific receptors in cells that are able to bind to pathogens. The researcher continued to "dig deeper" and in 1897 proposed the first theory. He believed that these side chains outside the cell membranes (which later became known as receptors) are able to bind to certain chemicals in the environment. Some of them can combine with toxins that microorganisms release into the environment, and this connection is built according to the “key-lock” type (the discovery was confirmed by Linus Pauling in the 40s). Having contacted the toxin, the cell begins to transform and freely release “side chains” into the intercellular environment, where they would meet with the toxin and neutralize it, protecting other cells and the whole organism from the “invasion”. Ehrlich even gave the name to these chains familiar - Antikorper or antibodies. His theory was remarkably similar to the mechanism of humoral immunity known today, which is based on antibodies produced by B cells.
This peculiar theory of immunity, by the way, caused a severe dispute between Erlich and Mechnikov: an emigrant from Russia believed that all immunity was provided by phagocytosis, and Erlich argued furiously that antibodies played the main role. In fact, they were both right, as it happens. Ehrlich's most important merit is that he first presented the interaction between antibodies, pathogens and cells as chemical reactions. In addition, it was he who formed the basis of modern immunological terminology.
Ilya Mechnikov. Nadar Photos
Wikimedia Commons
Apparently, the Nobel Committee at the beginning of its existence set one of the tasks of reconciliation of irreconcilable rivals. We have already told how in 1906 the ardent opponents of Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal, concurrently the founders of modern neurosciences, received the award. Apparently, guided by the same principle, the Nobel Committee in 1908 gave the prize to the two founders of modern immunology - Mechnikov and Erlich. In general, Erlich was nominated only 76 times. Interestingly, there were many nominations after 1908, including one nomination for a prize in chemistry. For what? Read on!
A little later, Paul was called the director of State Institute development and control of sera in Steglitz (a suburb of Berlin), which in 1899 expanded to the Institute for Experimental Serotherapy in Frankfurt am Main. Seven years later, Erlich became the director here too, and now the institute bears his name - Paul Ehrlich Institute.
The "magic bullet" did not leave the researcher's thoughts. With his assistant, the Japanese Sahashiro Hata, he tried more than 500 different dyes, expecting to find an effective remedy against trypanosoma, the causative agent of sleeping sickness. One day, leafing through another chemical journal, he came across an interesting drug against sleeping sickness - atoxil or, from Latin, "non-poisonous", which, as the authors said, perfectly relieved patients of their illness.
Atoxil
Wikimedia Commons
Having independently studied the drug, scientists came to the conclusion that the name was lying. Atoxil, containing arsenic in its composition, had a colossal toxic effect on the optic nerve, "helping" patients to recover and taking away their vision. Researchers spent several years before they found a more or less effective and not so toxic analogue - arsenophenylglycine.
And when Hoffman in 1905 determined that syphilis was caused by a specific microbe - a pale spirochete, which is very similar in structure to a trypanosome, Ehrlich began to look for a "magic bullet" against it. All this led to the creation in 1909 of substance No. 606 from atoxyl (it really turned out to be the 606th of the tested organoarsenic preparations), which was called arsphenamine or salvarsan. In the very first clinical trials conducted at the Magdeburg hospital, it showed high efficacy against syphilis. Thus, Salvarsan became the first chemotherapy drug in the history of medicine. Ehrlich announced the discovery of a remedy for syphilis in 1910, and the drug immediately began its journey around the world: for example, in the same year it was already used in Russia.
Inoculation of the drug "606" to an employee of the Imperial Orphanage. Russian empire, 1910
Wikimedia Commons
Finally, I need to write about one more discovery that Erlich made while working on salvarsan. This discovery posed a problem for pharmacology that has not yet been solved. Ehrlich injected toxic dyes into laboratory animals. Opening the bodies, he saw that all tissues were stained, except for the brain. At first, he thought that since the brain is mostly made up of lipids, they just don't stain. Subsequent experiments showed that if a dye is introduced into the blood, then the maximum that it can color is the so-called choroidal vascular plexuses of the ventricles of the brain. Further, "the path is closed to him." If the dye was injected into the cerebrospinal fluid by performing a lumbar puncture, the brain was stained, but the rest of the body was not stained. It became clear that between the blood and the central nervous system there is some barrier that many substances cannot overcome. Thus, the blood-brain barrier was discovered, which protects our brain from microorganisms and toxins, and has become a headache for neurologists who are trying to treat brain cancer. It is the blood-brain barrier that keeps chemotherapy away from tumors in the head. Therefore, the tasks set by Paul Ehrlich are still being solved by scientists.