Nobel laureates: Ilya Mechnikov. Most honorable award
Great Jews Mudrova Irina Anatolyevna
Frank Ilya Mikhailovich
Soviet physicist, 1958 Nobel laureate
Born October 23, 1908 in the family of the mathematician Mikhail Ludvigovich Frank and Elizaveta Mikhailovna Frank (ur. Gratsianova), who had recently moved to St. Petersburg from Nizhny Novgorod.
The future physicist came from a well-known Moscow Jewish family - his great-grandfather, Moisei Mironovich Rossiyansky, became one of the founders of the Jewish community in Moscow in the 1860s. Grandfather Ludwig Semyonovich Frank (1844-1882), was a graduate of Moscow University (1872), moved to Moscow from the Vilnius province during the Polish uprising of 1863 and as a military doctor participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, being awarded the Order of Stanislav and the nobility. Father's brother (uncle of Ilya Mikhailovich Frank) - prominent Russian philosopher Semyon Ludvigovich Frank; another brother is an artist, sculptor, set designer and book illustrator Leon (Lev Vasilievich) Zak (pseudonym Leon Rossiyansky, 1892-1980).
The family lived off their father's modest teaching salary. Only after the revolution did he become a professor. The mother graduated from nursing courses, and then the Women's Medical Institute. After the revolution, she worked as a doctor for many years, mainly as a specialist in bone tuberculosis. The boy was sick a lot in childhood and did not study at school very regularly. He was fond of biology and willingly studied mathematics on his own, which was facilitated by the help of his father and books. In the 1920s, the family lived in the Crimea. After graduating from high school, Ilya entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow State University in 1926. From the second year he began working in the laboratory of S.I. Vavilov, whom he considered his teacher. Under the guidance of Vavilov, Frank completed his first work on luminescence.
After graduating from Moscow State University in 1930, he worked for several years at the State Optical Institute in Leningrad in the laboratory of A.N. Terenin. Here Frank carried out original research on physical optics and photochemical reactions, for which he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1934.
In 1934, at the suggestion of S.I. Vavilov Frank went to work at the Physics Institute. P.N. Lebedev, USSR Academy of Sciences (FIAN). Here he worked until 1970 as a senior researcher, head of department, head of the laboratory of the atomic nucleus. From the very beginning, back in 1934, he became interested in the work of P.A. Cherenkov on the glow of pure liquids under the influence of gamma rays, later called the "Cherenkov effect". Together with S.I. Vavilov took part in discussing the progress of these studies. He made a certain contribution to the understanding of the results, especially in the issue of radiation directivity. Together with I.E. Tamm in 1937 explained this new phenomenon as the emission of an electron when moving in a medium with superluminal speed and developed his theory. This discovery led to the creation of a new method for detecting and measuring the speed of high-energy nuclear particles. This method is of great importance in modern experimental nuclear physics. For this work, Frank and others were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958. In his Nobel lecture, Frank pointed out that the Cherenkov effect "has numerous applications in the physics of high-energy particles." "The connection between this phenomenon and other problems has also been clarified," he added, "such as the connection with plasma physics, astrophysics, the problem of radio wave generation and the problem of particle acceleration."
Academician Vavilov characterized his student on July 2, 1938: “Using his deep knowledge in the field of physical optics, I.M. Frank took part in the work of the Stratospheric Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on observing the glow of the night sky, together with N.A. Dobrotin and P.A. Cherenkov. This work led to the discovery of a new effect of a sharp variation in the intensity of the night glow of the sky during the night. Under the leadership of I.M. Frank, for the first time on Elbrus, it was possible to observe cosmic rays with the Wilson camera.
In general, I.M. Frank is an exceptional representative of young Soviet physics in his erudition, experimental art, and deep physical intuition. "
In 1940, Frank began lecturing at the Department of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University, which he headed. This work was interrupted by the war. With its beginning, together with the Physics Institute, the scientist was evacuated to Kazan, where he remained until 1943. At the end of the war and the first post-war years, Frank focused on research in reactor physics, carried out in close contact with I.V. Kurchatov. For work on the physics of reactors and work on the study of nuclear reactions of the lightest nuclei, also carried out on a special assignment from the government, he was awarded orders and the Stalin Prize in 1953.
In 1946, Frank was elected a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Frank's specialization in neutron physics began with research in reactor physics. Research in the physics of slow neutrons has become one of the fruitful areas of work developed by the scientist at the Lebedev Physical Institute.
In 1988, the scientist continued his work in the field of neutron physics and theoretical research in electrodynamics. In particular, he prepared for publication a monograph summarizing a number of previously obtained results.
Frank had three Orders of Lenin (1952, 1953, 1975), the Order of the October Revolution (1978), two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1948, 1968), the Order of the Badge of Honor (1945), as well as medals, including including "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." He was a laureate of two Stalin Prizes (1946, 1953) and the USSR State Prize (1971).
This text is an introductory fragment. From the book Train Station of Dreams author Bashmet Yuri"But I have a gardener - a Nobel Prize winner" Before I tell you about a very important, dramatic episode in my life - two funny stories about Rostropovich. The second, however, is not only funny. But still, it is very important for maintaining the spirit and accumulation.
From the book of Hemingway the author Gribanov Boris TimofeevichCHAPTER 27 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER We need to work faster. Now it gets dark so early ... E. Hemingway, From a letter So, after all the wanderings, he returned to his home, in Finka Vihia, about which he said: "How nice it is to come back here, wherever you go." Everything was the same here
From the book The Invention of Theater the author Rozovsky Mark GrigorievichNobel Laureate Thomas Stearns Eliot, Elizabeth Roberts, Mark Rozovsky “Murder in the Temple. Rehearsal ”Performance-action in memory of Father Alexander Men Stage production by Mark Rozovsky Premiere - April 2001 Who is the killer?
From the book Washed Pasternak's novel: Doctor Zhivago between the KGB and the CIA author Tolstoy IvanNobel Prize Laureate Albert Camus "The Righteous" Play in 2 parts Stage Director - Mark Rozovsky Premiere - March 2003 Psychology of Terror Terror is not so simple. It is carried out by people who have both a mother and a father, and an "idea" - albeit erroneous, but testifying that
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From the author's bookANNEXES Reaction to the release of "Doctor Zhivago", the award of the Nobel Prize and the persecution of Pasternak - based on materials from the collection "The Pasternak Case" (Munich: COPE,
From the author's bookBegin Menachem 1913–1992 Prime Minister of Israel, winner of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize Menachem (Wolfovich) Begin was born on August 16, 1913 in Brest-Litovsk. His father was the secretary of the Brest-Lithuanian Jewish community, one of the first in the city to join Zionism -
From the author's bookRabin Mtshak 1922–1995 Prime Minister of Israel, 1994 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Yitzhak Rabin was born on March 1, 1922 in Jerusalem, in the family of a Ukrainian Jew Nehemiah Rabin (Rubitsov) and his wife Rosa (Cohen), a native of Mogilev. When Nehemiah Rubitsov was 18 yo, he went
From the author's bookAlferov Zhores Ivanovich b. 1930 Russian physicist, 2000 Nobel laureate Zhores Ivanovich Alferov was born into the Belarusian-Jewish family of Ivan Karpovich Alferov and Anna Vladimirovna Rosenblum in the Belarusian city of Vitebsk. The name was given in honor of Jean Jaures,
From the author's bookVitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg 1916-2009 Russian theoretical physicist, 2003 Nobel laureate Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg was born in 1916 in Moscow in the family of an engineer, water purification specialist, a graduate of the Riga Polytechnic Lazar Efimovich Ginzburg and a doctor
From the author's bookZeldovich Yakov Borisovich 1914-1987 Soviet physicist and physicist-chemist Born on March 8, 1914 in Minsk in the family of lawyer Boris Naumovich Zeldovich and Anna Pavlovna Kiveliovich. When the baby was four months old, the family moved to St. Petersburg. After graduating from high school in 1924, Jacob
From the author's bookKikoin Isaak Konstantinovich 1908–1984 Soviet experimental physicist Born in the family of a school mathematics teacher Kushel Isaakovich Kikoin and Bunya Izrailevna Mayofis in 1908 in Malye Zhagori, Shavelsky district, Kovno province. Since 1915 he lived with his family in Pskov
From the author's bookLev Davidovich Landau 1908–1968 theoretical physicist, 1962 Nobel Prize laureate Born into the Jewish family of oil engineer David Lvovich Landau and his wife Lyubov Veniaminovna in Baku on January 22, 1908. From 1916 he studied at the Baku Jewish gymnasium, where his mother was
From the author's bookEvgeny Mikhailovich Lifshits 1915–1985 Soviet physicist Born in Kharkov in the family of the famous Kharkov oncologist, Professor Mikhail Ilyich Lifshits, whose doctoral dissertation was opposed by Academician I.P. Pavlov. Graduated from the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute in
From the author's bookBoris Leonidovich Pasternak 1890-1960 one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize The future poet was born in Moscow into a creative Jewish family. Father - artist, academician of the Petersburg Academy of Arts Leonid Osipovich (Isaak Iosifovich) Pasternak,
From the author's bookBrodsky Iosif Aleksandrovich 1940–1996 Russian and American poet, Nobel Prize laureate in 1987 Iosif Brodsky was born on May 24, 1940 in Leningrad into a Jewish family. Father, Alexander Ivanovich Brodsky, was a military photojournalist, returned from the war in 1948 and
Louis Pasteur - Founder of Immunology
1887 - lecture at the French Academy of Sciences
Principles of the prevention of infectious diseases by weakened or killed pathogens (chicken cholera)
In the Russian chronicles, along with numerous descriptions of the diseases of princes and representatives of the upper class (boyars, clergy), horrifying pictures of large epidemics of plague and other infectious diseases are given, which in Russia were called "pestilence." For the period from XI to XVIII centuries. the annals mention 47 "morales". They began, as a rule, in the border cities - Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, through which foreign merchant caravans passed.
In 1546 Professor of the University of Padua, J. Frakastro wrote his work "On Contagion, Contagious Diseases and Treatment" in three books, in which he significantly shaken the previously prevailing concept of "miasms".
Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
English physician, surgeon, founder of the theory of antiseptics. He proved that MO cause suppuration of wounds, come from the external environment with dust, tools, honey on hands and clothes. staff. He suggested using 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 is an arsenic compound).
1908 - Nobel Prize
Sergei Nikolaevich Vinogradsky (1856-1953)
Founder of soil microbiology and the theory of chemosynthesis. He worked in St. Petersburg in the field of microbial ecology, studied MO in the natural environment. He opened MO breathing due to chemical oxidation of inorganic substances: oxidation of ammonia, sulfur, nitrate.
Nikolay Fedorovich Gamaleya (1859-1949)
Creator of bacteriological stations in Russia, rabies vaccination station
Edward Jenner (1749-1823)
Gloucestershire English physician, founder vaccination (vaccinating with vaccinia to prevent smallpox). Young Jenner got the idea for the cowpox vaccination in a conversation with an elderly milkmaid, whose hands were covered with skin rashes.
1908 G. - I. I. Mechnikov and Ehrlich p.
Phagocytic theory of immunity.
The humoral theory of immunity.
Attempts to elucidate the mechanisms of protection.
Nobel Prize for the Study of the Nature of Immunity.
I.I. Mechnikov
S. Ivanovka (Kharkov).
1879 - the theory of the origin of multicellular organisms.
1882 - phagocytosis.
1883 - phagocytic theory of immunity.
1892 - theory of comparative pathology of inflammation.
Emil Adolf fon Behring (1854 - 1917)
Nobel Prize in 1901 for the discovery of the protective properties of anti-tetanus and anti-diphtheria sera.
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843 - 1910)
In 1905, Robert Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "research and discovery concerning the treatment of tuberculosis".
Ehrlich, Paul (1854-1915)Respiration processes in tissues.
Different forms of leukocytes.
The role of bone marrow in hematopoiesis.
Mast cells.
Method for staining tuberculosis pathogens.
Arsenic treatment for syphilis.
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 seem to undergo selection)
Side chain theory - 1984 Nobel Prize (AT itself may be AG, and antibodies will be produced on it).
Macfarlane BURNETH (1899 - 1985), Australian
He graduated from the medical faculty in Melbourne, defended his dissertation in London.
In Melbourne - vaccination against diphtheria (Staphylococcus) in 1928, death of 12 children.
Returned to England (chicken embryos) - virology, the question is: how does the organism distinguish its own and "not - its"?
The basis of the theory of tolerance ("own-not-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 Infectieuses. 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. PMM 402(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 colors. Ill. In the text. In print binding of the era with embossing on the spine. 24x17 cm. The first edition of the famous work Russian scientist in French.Around the world, book collectors of priority editions value this particular edition, but it is better to have in the collection also 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 composition "L" immunite dans les Maladies Infectieues "into Russian, edited by the author. With 45 colored drawings in the text. St. Petersburg, published by KL Rikker, 1903.
IV, 604, VII. With col. silt 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, Kharkiv 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 theory, founder of scientific gerontology.
Scientific activity of I.I. Mechnikov started very early. In 1864, nineteen years old, after graduating from Kharkov University and having already had several publications, 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 largest scientists in 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 defined 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 that stage in his life, which, perhaps, determined his entire future destiny as a scientist. It was here, already sufficiently familiar with Darwinian teaching from his student years, that he was under the direct influence of A.O. Kovalevsky subordinated all his work to a single idea - the proof of evolution. The main themes of I.I. Mechnikov during this period of his scientific activities refer 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 of
"Messina marked a turning point in my scientific life. Before that, a zoologist — I immediately became a pathologist. I found myself on a 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 completely analogous to those that he observed in his experiments on the larvae of starfish are found in all types of animals with mesodermal tissues, that is, tissues developing from the intermediate germ layer, the mesoderm. In complex animals, these tissues include primarily blood and the so-called connective tissue, which include cellular elements capable of phagocytosing 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.
I.I. Mechnikov presented in a report at the congress of naturalists and doctors in Odessa in 1883. This report "On the healing powers of the body" is a significant milestone, marking the emergence of one of the remarkable achievements of science in the treasury of human knowledge.Since 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 causative agents - 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 gleaned from the study of infections in various representatives of the animal world - from protozoa to higher vertebrates. Thus, 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, II Mechnikov did not abandon his previous topics on the embryology of invertebrates. Taking advantage of his two visits abroad by the sea, in 1884 and 1885 he continued his research into the development of echinoderms and jellyfish. These studies, in which I.I.Mechnikov finally formulated his theory of phagocytella, compiled material for a number of articles and monographs on the development of jellyfish, which are, admittedly, classic works in the field of comparative and evolutionary embryology.In 1886 II Mechnikov became the head of the first in Russia Odessa bacteriological station. But the activity of the station could not be developed properly because of the obstacles posed by the inert and sometimes hostile tsarist officials. Desperate for the possibility of fruitful work in Russia, II Mechnikov decided to leave his homeland and seek refuge abroad.In 1887 he undertook a trip abroad to find 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. Using the invitation of Pasteur, who agreed to organize an independent laboratory for I.I. Mechnikov, he moved to Paris in the fall of 1888, where he worked until his death.The twenty-eight-year Parisian period of I.I. Mechnikov's life 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, Bering, Pfeifer). The latter contrasted the phagocytic or cellular theory of Mechnikov with the so-called humoral theory, which put forward as the main factors of the body's defense reactions not cells, but specific chemicals of body fluids.To confirm the fidelity of his views, I.I. Mechnikov, already with a whole group of his students and collaborators, studied in every detail the phenomenon of immunity to infectious diseases and proved that phagocytes also play a decisive role in these phenomena. The range of his research includes a wide variety of infectious diseases - typhoid, cholera, plague, tuberculosis, tetanus and others - and their causative agents. In the course of these works, I.I. Mechnikov and his school succeed in resolving a number of particular questions of bacteriology and epidemiology, which are of great practical importance and underlie modern methods of combating infectious diseases.Laboratory of I.I. Mechnikov in Paris quickly became the center of advanced medical thought, to which doctors and scientists from all over the world aspired. Around I.I. Mechnikov, talented employees and students gathered, from whom the largest bacteriologists and immunologists grew (P. Roux, Borde, the Russian scientist Bezredka). 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 cycle 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. Doctors and scientists all over the world were faced with a harmonious system of views and methods, which were destined to radically restructure a number of established positions and open up the broadest prospects for medical science. The significance of this book is far from being exhausted by the fact that I.I. Mechnikov, on the basis of his own works and a critical revision of numerous literary data, created and substantiated a new harmonious doctrine of inflammation. Having illuminated in a new way one of the essential chapters of general pathology - the doctrine of inflammation, I.I. At the same time, Mechnikov created and firmly substantiated a new concept of pathological processes as reactions of the body.In his "Lectures" I.I. Mechnikov, with exceptional completeness and brilliance, showed in what ways the evolutionary complication of inflammatory processes took place from primitive Don animals and more complexly organized ones. The comparative-evolutionary method allowed him to reveal in a complex complex 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 layers that developed as the organization became more complex. animals. Thus, the fruitfulness of the comparative method was first proved with complete evidence and exhaustive convincingness.All these works by I.I. Mechnikov as a biologist and pathologist made tremendous 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 solid foundations for overcoming the elements of scholasticism and metaphysics in theoretical medicine.In 1894 I.I. Mechnikov took part in the international congress of bacteriologists in Budapest and, armed with the richest material of his new studies of the phenomena of immunity in infectious diseases, again successfully defended his phagocytic theory.The time span between 1894 and 1897 filled with intensive work by II Mechnikov and his entire laboratory, in connection with the new discoveries of 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 collaborators 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 various microbes that cause infectious diseases, the mechanism of their action and the body's responses to this action, were, as it were, the last final series of works that allowed I.I.Mechnikov to summarize his many years of research on immunity. This result was summed up by him in his report at the international congress in Paris in 1900 and in his famous work "Immunity in infectious diseases", published in 1901.This book, which I.I. Mechnikov regarded it 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 harmonious system of views and ideas that had a huge impact on all subsequent work in the field of immunology and entered as the main component of 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 solution of which he seeks to approach as a biologist and pathologist. In this regard, interest arises in the study of the nature of man and his specific features as a special being in the general zoological chain. The result of this interest was a series of works that provided material for the book "Studies on Human Nature".In works devoted to the causes of aging and possible ways of overcoming premature senile senility, I.I. 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 dietary regimens and thus minimize intoxication leading to premature aging.Being a staunch atheist and materialist, I.I. Mechnikov argued with great persuasiveness that the power of progressive knowledge - and, first of all, medicine - would ultimately allow human life to be rebuilt in such a way that death would occur only when the "life instinct" naturally and imperceptibly passed into the "death instinct". These optimistic thoughts, developed in the book "Studies of Optimism", published in 1907, like the whole optimistic worldview so characteristic of I.I. Mechnikov in the last third of his life, changed the pessimistic moods that had dominated him in his youth.In 1908 I.I. Mechnikov, together with P. Ehrlich, an infectious disease specialist and immunologist, received the international Nobel Prize. This was the reason for I.I. Mechnikov to Sweden (the Nobel Prize was awarded in Stockholm) and to Russia, undertaken by him in 1909 and gave him the opportunity to meet his brilliant compatriot, 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's "Forty Years of Searching for a Rational Worldview", in which he collected all his general works, starting with various articles on "disharmony" in human nature. This entire series of works clearly illustrates his path from early pessimism to the bright materialistic optimism of adulthood and is an excellent monument to the ideological growth of one of the greatest representatives of modern science.In 1915 I.I. Mechnikov fell ill and died on July 15, 1916.Kharkiv, Odessa, St. Petersburg, Parisian. A person who has twice unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Russian and French Nobel Prize. Heir to Pasteur. The man who helped make the transparent larvae of starfish. All this is Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov.
Mechnikov student
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Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov
1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Paul Ehrlich). The wording of the Nobel Committee: "For works on immunity" (in recognition of their work on immunity).
Our today's Nobel laureate is a special person both for our column 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 field. And secondly, he made a noticeable part of his scientific career in my native Odessa, and it is his name that bears the university where I studied. So, meet 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 Spafariya. The fact is that Ilya Ilyich came from an old boyar Moldavian family. His ancestor was Nicolae Milescu-Spafari (Spataru), a prominent Russian diplomat, theologian, traveler, who spoke nine languages, a polyglot translator, geographer, head of the embassy of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in China.
Monument to Nikolai Spafari
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Spataru, translated from Romanian, means “having a sword, a 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 Nobelist, Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov, was a guards officer and a Kharkov landowner (more precisely, his estate was located in the village of Ivanovka in the Kupyansk district of the 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 uncle was also a writer, and Uncle Misha was generally Boris Grachevsky of the 19th century - he published the humorous 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."
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One cannot but mention one more elder brother of our hero, Lev Ilyich, who went down in history as a Swiss geographer and publicist. Yes, yes, studying in St. Petersburg as a lawyer, the young man went to fight under the banner of Garibaldi, became an anarchist, settled in Clarence 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 by that time his first wife had indeed died of tuberculosis. 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 survived her husband by 27 years and lived to 86 years.
But back to young Ilya. He graduated from the Kharkov Lyceum with a gold medal and at the age of 16 he already wrote a scientific article criticizing the textbook on geology, from which he happened to study. In 1862, Kharkiv believed that studying abroad was more prestigious. The means were sufficient, and the young man, who had already chosen biology as a field of scientific activity, decided that he would go to Würzburg to study cytology, which was fashionable at that time. True, he arrived at the university six weeks before the start of classes, and only in Germany he realized that he did not really speak German. The young man got scared and returned home, where he entered the Kharkov University. The young man brought with him from Europe a Russian translation of Darwin (I wonder where he found it there!), And since then has become an ardent admirer of the theory of evolution.
But in Kharkov, he decided not to stay for a long time and completed the university four-year course in the natural department of the physics and mathematics faculty 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 embryos of multicellular animals are homologous (demonstrating structural correspondence), as it should be in forms related by a common origin. At 22, Mechnikov received the Karl Ernst von Baer honorary prize. At the same time he defended his doctoral dissertation on the embryonic development of crustaceans and fish and became a teacher 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 an assistant professor at Novorossiysk University in Odessa. The story was unpleasant: Sechenov recommended Mechnikov for the post of professor at the Military Medical Academy, but he was blackballed. The indignant Sechenov together with Mechnikov (and at the same time with Kovalevsky) took offense and waved to Odessa.
In South Palmyra, Mechnikov liked more than in 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 helper.
However, the blood of the elder Mechnikov-anarchist made itself felt in Odessa. In 1881, the People's Will killed the reformer Tsar Alexander II, being firmly convinced that in the end it would be better. In the end, everyone got Alexander III and the tightening of the nuts. Mechnikov in 1882, in protest, resigned from his professorship at the university and left for a while to Messina, 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 Mediterranean coast 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 (amoebas), 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 injecting the carmine dye into the larvae - and saw how some wandering cells "eat" the carmine grains. It occurred to him that it was these cells that should form the basis of immunity, destroying foreign bodies and microorganisms that 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.
Literature
Rudolf Aiken. Nobel Prize in Literature, 1908
Rudolf Eiken was awarded the prize for a serious search for truth, an all-pervasive power of thought, a broad outlook, liveliness and persuasiveness with which he defended and developed idealistic philosophy. Professor Aiken wrote serious research in various fields of philosophy and was a champion of true spirituality, not superficial morality, but a life full of nobility and dignity.
Physiology and Medicine
Ilya Mechnikov. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1908
The Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov was awarded a prize for his work on immunity. M.'s most important contribution to science was of a methodological nature: the scientist's goal was to study "immunity in infectious diseases from the standpoint of cellular physiology." Mechnikov's name is associated with the popular commercial method of making kefir.
Medicine
Paul Ehrlich. Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1908
German pharmacologist and immunologist. In 1908, Ehrlich, together with Ilya Mechnikov, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his work on the theory of immunity." In the Nobel lecture E. expressed confidence that scientists began to "understand the mechanism of action of therapeutic substances ..,". “I also hope,” he further noted, “that if these areas are systematically developed, it will soon become easier for us than until now to develop rational ways of synthesizing drugs.”
Peace
Claes Arnoldson. Nobel Peace Prize, 1908
Claes Arnoldson received the award for his participation in the resolution of the Norwegian conflict. The journalist Arnoldson was one of the most popular speakers in the early days of the European peace movement. He devoted all his efforts to the struggle for individual rights and democracy, striving to legislatively ensure religious tolerance and moderate militarism.
Peace
Frederick Bayer. Nobel Peace Prize, 1908
Danish pacifist. in 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for the creation of the Scandinavian Inter-Parliamentary Union to strengthen regional cooperation." Emphasizing the importance of international law for resolving disputes, he noted: “Sometimes we hear that treaties lose all meaning with the outbreak of war ... This is a militaristic view that a pacifist cannot put up with. We must do everything possible for the idea of law to prevail. "
Chemistry
Ernest Rutherford. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1908
Ernest Rutherford received the award for his research on the decay of elements in the chemistry of radioactive substances. The discoveries led to an amazing conclusion: a chemical element is capable of converting into other elements. Rutherford proposed a new model of the atom that is generally accepted today. This model is like a tiny solar system and assumes that atoms are made up mostly of empty space.
Physics
Gabriel Lippmann. Nobel Prize in Physics, 1908
French physicist. "For the creation of a method of photographic reproduction of colors based on the phenomenon of interference" L. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908, mentioning the "key position that photographic reproduction of various objects in modern life", KB. Hasselberg of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at the award ceremony that "L.'s method of color photography marks a new step forward ... in the art of photography."
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