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Ilya (Elias Mechnikov)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"ILYA [ELIAS] MECHNIKOV (1845-1916), Russian biologist, was born in the province of Kharkov May 15 1845. His father was an officer of the Imperial Guard and his mother was a Jewess. At the age of 17 he entered the Kharkov University and two years later went to Germany for further biological training. In 1867 he returned to Russia and took his degree in zoology both at Odessa and Petrograd, becoming professor ordinarius of zoology and comparative anatomy at Odessa. In 1882 he went to Messina and there began his studies into the nature and habits of microbes. Henceforth he devoted himself to pathological study and in 1888 went to Pasteur in Paris, who encouraged him and gave him a laboratory in the Ecole Normale. By 1892 his views on the essential importance of phagocytosis were firmly established. In that year he published The Comparative Pathology of Inflammation, followed in 1901 by his chief work, Immunity in Infectious Diseases, and a more popular treatise, The Nature of Man (1903). In later years he made a special study of the bacteria infesting the alimentary canal of man, and recommended a diet of sour milk. He was an hon. D.Sc. of Cambridge and Copley medallist of the Royal Society, a member of the Institute of France and of the Academy of Sciences of Petrograd, and in 1908 was awarded the Nobel prize for the benefits his researches had conferred upon humanity. He died in Paris July 16 1916.

See Life by his wife, Olga Mechnikov (1920), trans. by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire (1921).