Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 29. (Budapest, 1963)

Dr. Harangby László: Mecsnyikov munkássága és jelentősége az orvostudományban

wife: Fjedorovna Ludmilla who had been seriously ill even at the time of their wedding. The young husband was not only the most gentle and most self-sacrificing nurse of his wife, for three long years, but his whole mentality was filled but by one wish, namely to save his beloved patient's life. The scientist doing research work in the field of natural selection, and the observer of nature and of living organism threatened by diseases respectively thus became a pathologist who made desperate efforts to find such factors as might defend the organism against pathogenic germs, and might bring about discovery. Yet the struggle was tragically interrupted shortly. The death of his beloved wife made Mechnikov a morphinist and the misfortune drove him trying to commit suicide and it seemed as if his ruin was final, when at last the scientist, roaming restlessly and aimlessly, without any object in life, was appointed professor to the zoological faculty of the University at Odessa. Mechnikov, who stood on the verge of complete breakdown accepted the appointment and begun his activity with renewed energy. What induced Mechnikov, who was sinking into apathy and breakdown under the heavy misfortune, to this step, and what brought about sudden renewal of his activity we don't know. Mechnikov s disparaging critics try to prove especially with this change, that he was a hesitating personality being tossed about the extremes of his emotional moods, and that he was inclined to forget everything immidiately for the respectable employment. As for myself I guess to find his spiritual motives in the followings: Mechnikov started his student years among the most terrible opression of tzarizm. As a deep thinking young student he was shocked to see the terrible troubles of contemporary society. As a jew, he felt the most unfriendly behaviour shown to him at Würzburg, the ostracism of his race, and he became dissappointed, the pure desire for knowledge did not mean by itself for everybody the opportunity of learning. „All this exists only in human society"-accentuated Mechnikov manytimes-„but in biology where the eternal laws of nature rule, the best succeed." His wife's death-whom he adored as a supernatural human beingshook his firm belief, and it induced him to that bitter expression that „not the best, but the most cunning survive the struggle for life!" And later, after an attempt of suicide, watching the moths swarm-