  A Bacteriological Institute in Odessa — Unsatisfactory conditions — Experiments on erysipelas and on relapsing fever. The results of Pasteur’s antirabic inoculations were published in 1885. The Municipality of Odessa, desirous of founding a bacteriological station in that town, sent Dr. GamalÉia to Paris to study the new method. Metchnikoff was appointed Scientific Director of the new institution, and Drs. GamalÉia and Bardach, former pupils of his, were entrusted with the preparation of vaccines and preventive inoculations. The Institute, opened in 1886, was founded at the expense of the Municipality of Odessa and of the Zemstvo of the Kherson Province. Metchnikoff himself describes as follows the short time he spent in that Institute: ... Having given up my State work, I placed myself at the service of the city and the Zemstvo. Absorbed as I was by the scientific part of the work, I confided to my young colleagues the practical part, i.e. the vaccinations and the perfection of vaccines. It was to be supposed that all would go very well. Work in the new Institute began with ardour. But, very soon, a strong opposition manifested itself against it. The medical administration began to make incursions into the Institute, with a view to finding some infractions of the regulations. Medical society was hostile to every work which issued For instance, in order to destroy certain voles, very harmful to the cereals of Southern Russia, we proposed to make experiments as to infecting those rodents with the microbe of chicken cholera. Laboratory experiments were begun with that object. But, one day, I received an order from the Prefect peremptorily forbidding those experiments. This measure had been taken at the instigation of local physicians; having seen in a Petersburg newspaper an article by some one who had not a notion of bacteriology, they had assured the Prefect that chicken cholera could turn into Asiatic cholera. I had to appeal to the General Governor, who ended by countermanding the Prefect’s order; nevertheless this incident was not without regrettable consequences concerning the ulterior activities of the Institute. Apart from all that, a deep scission took place between the members, though they were so few, of the Institute itself, and this had fatal consequences. The men who were in charge of the practical work ceased to work in concert; I could not take their place, being overwhelmed with scientific researches, besides which, holding no medical degree, I was not qualified to perform vaccinations on human beings. Under those conditions, I understood that in my quality as a theoretician, I should do well to retire, leaving the laboratory to practitioners who, bearing full responsibility, would fill the part better. During his stay at the Odessa Bacteriological Institute, Metchnikoff had busied himself with infectious diseases in order to answer the first objections to his theory. He began by the microbes of erysipelas and showed that the phenomena of the disease, as well as those of recovery, were in full accord with the postulates of the phagocyte theory. And then he studied relapsing fever in order to answer Baumgarten’s objections, affirming that there was no phagocytic reaction in that disease, though it almost invariably ended in recovery. Experiments on man not being possible, Metchnikoff procured some monkeys, which he inoculated with relapsing fever, and ascertained that Baumgarten’s error was due to the fact that he had only looked for phagocytosis in the patient’s blood, whilst it really took place in the spleen. These researches on erysipelas and relapsing fever were published in Virchow’s Archives in 1887. Besides this scientific work, he was also giving lectures on bacteriology to some physicians, and was in full productive activity when external opposition and the discord among his collaborators in the Institute itself forced upon him the conviction that he could remain there no longer. At that very moment the Prince of Oldenburg, having founded a Bacteriological Institute at Petersburg, invited Metchnikoff to take charge of it. He had to refuse, fearing the Northern climate for my health, and knowing from experience that it was impossible for a layman to manage an Institute with a medical staff. Yet he could not do without a laboratory. Seeing no possibility of having one in Russia, he decided to look abroad for a refuge and a laboratory. “Having learnt from experience at Odessa,” he wrote, “how difficult was the struggle against an opposition coming from all sides and devoid of reasonable causes, I preferred to go abroad to look for a peaceful shelter for my scientific researches.” We were no longer held back by family considerations; |
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