Around Christmas of 1882, while peering through a microscope at starfish
larvae in which he had inserted tiny thorns, Russian zoologist Elie
Metchnikoff had a brilliant insight: what if the mobile cells he saw
gathering around the thorns were nothing but a healing force in action?
Metchnikoff's daring theory of immunity--that voracious cells he called
phagocytes formed the first line of defense against invading
bacteria--would eventually earn the scientist a Nobel Prize, shared with
his archrival, as well as the unofficial moniker "Father of Natural
Immunity." But first he had to win over skeptics, especially those who
called his theory "an oriental fairy tale."
Using previously inaccessible archival materials, author Luba Vikhanski
chronicles Metchnikoff's remarkable life and discoveries in the first
moder n biography of this hero of medicine. Metchnikoff was a towering
figure in the scientific community of the early twentieth century, a
tireless humanitarian who, while working at the Pasteur Institute in
Paris, also strived to curb the spread of cholera, syphilis, and other
deadly diseases. In his later years, he startled the world with
controversial theories on longevity, launching a global craze for
yogurt, and pioneered research into gut microbes and aging. Though
Metchnikoff was largely forgotten for nearly a hundred years, Vikhanski
documents a remarkable revival of interest in his ideas on immunity and
on the gut flora in the science of the twenty-first century.
