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

Dr. Harangby László: Mecsnyikov munkássága és jelentősége az orvostudományban

seems evident to consider this, as the results of his wide-spread scientific lifework brought about by the scientist's versatility, and having no close connection with the field of his principal researching tendency. This, however is not so. The scientific activity of Mecbnikov-as we have explained above-is based on his biological point of view, and is totally connected with his longing for life and his fight against death. Let us look at, from this standpoint on his researchwork in reference with syphilis. The young Mecbnikov had been fighting against death in the field, where he had been led by the grave illnes of his first beloved wife and here he struggled against pathogenic germs. When he was over fifty, he begun to feel within himself the diminution of lifepower, and so his attention turned from pathogenic germs to other merciless enemies of life, i. e. the senescence. Here, he also tried to take up the battle but for the biologist-without being physician-had an even more difficult position in this field, and he was not able to enforce his thoughts in the same measure as in his previous activity. He was bound to the statement of physicians as his starting point, and had to put up with studying one or the other part of the problem. As he was getting on in his years, the pathologists of those times held the wrong view that arteriosclerosis played a great part in it, and this was attributed to the conceptions of those times frequently to syphilis and the different poisonous conditions. Mechnikov was caught by this conception and in the fight against senescence, he begun an attack-first of all-against syphilis. Here he was still moving about his accustomed fields of work, i. e. in the field of the struggle against infectious diseases; and he managed to find a medically qualified collaborator in Mssr. Roux one of Pasteur's excellent followers, who had always sympathized with him. The two men were quite different from each other, but the unselfish enthusiasm for science was similar in both. Mechnikov admired Roux for his immense knowledge, the security and exactness of his statements, and his eminent experimental gift. Roux has on the other hand admired Mechnikov as a fascinating genius and great initiator. Neither of them appreciated money as such, and when in 1903, at about the same time, both were granted a great scientific remuneration, they agreed