May 15, 1845
He was born in the Kharkov province into a noble family. Ilya Mechnikov — a biologist who made many important discoveries in medicine. Nobel Prize laureate.
Our old age is a disease that needs to be treated like any other.
From childhood, he was playful and restless, for which his parents nicknamed him "Mr. Mercury." He calmed down only after spotting a butterfly or other insect, which he could watch for hours.
Already in his second year of studying natural sciences, he passed his final exams as an external student and was sent for an internship in Germany.
Mechnikov's research made it possible to make a breakthrough in the study of bacteria, cholera epidemics, typhoid fever and other infectious diseases.
At 28, he lost his wife to tuberculosis. He attempted suicide but overdosed on morphine, causing him to vomit. He vowed to make progress in the fight against tuberculosis.
Consumption is spreading not at all due to the imperfection of science, but due to the ignorance and carelessness of the population.
At 37, while vacationing in Italy, he made a world-class discovery that led him to the Nobel Prize.
I plucked some thorns from a rose bush and immediately inserted them under the skin of the water-clear starfish larvae.
The scientist observed how specially stained cells rushed toward the irritant, like a spike. This led to the conclusion that the pus from a splinter in a human finger, like any inflammation, is the body's fight against a microbial attack. This is how the famous "wandering cell" theory and the concept of immunity emerged.
He believed that premature old age and death were caused by poisoning by microbial toxins that were formed due to poor nutrition, smoking, alcohol, and stress.
The future of medicine lies much more in preventing diseases than in treating them.
He spent his final years in France and died in 1916 of a heart attack. He bequeathed his body for medical research. He requested that the condition of his digestive organs be assessed during the autopsy and that a conclusion be drawn on the appropriateness of the "nutritional hygiene" he had followed for 30 years.