  First our pleasures die, and then Our hopes, and then—our fears, and when These are dead—the debt is due. Dust claims dust—and we die too. Shelley. Unpleasant incidents — The fabrication of lacto-bacilli — St. LÉger-en-Yvelines — Return to Paris — First cardiac attack — Evolution of the death-instinct — Notes on his symptoms. The end of 1912 had some unexpected emotions in store for us. Metchnikoff had always been able to congratulate himself on the cordial hospitality which he had found in France, and to the end of his life he remained deeply grateful for it. But, in any country, incidents may occur about which it would be unjust to generalise when they are due to individuals or to particular limited circles, as was the fact in the present case. In spite of the broad and generous ideas so widespread in France, a sudden current of narrow nationalism became manifest, at this moment, in certain quarters. Foreigners were accused of invading the country, of occupying lucrative posts and increasing the difficulties of the bitter struggle for existence. At first, only vague allusions were made, but, little by little, the attacks of that nationalist circle went beyond all bounds of justice and decency and turned into brutal One newspaper especially led a furious propaganda and hesitated at no means of overwhelming its victims, one of whom was Metchnikoff. Those coarse attacks might have been ignored with the contempt which they deserved had they not been echoed by a writer in a serious publication. Dr. Roux then wrote a reply in the same paper, and the campaign ceased. A proverb says with truth, “Slander away! something will always stick.” And it was thus in this case. Metchnikoff was reproached with having made money by his scientific discoveries. The story of his whole life and the fact that he left no fortune should suffice to answer this calumny, yet I am obliged to dwell on it, though I should have preferred not to do so. The incident is too characteristic of Metchnikoff to be omitted in this biography, which must be a faithful testimony. The calumny was based on a real fact, but the interpretation of it was absolutely false. After Metchnikoff’s experiments on the lactic bacillus, a notion of the hygienic power of pure sour milk began to spread among the public. A manufacturer had the idea of preparing it on a large scale, according to the new scientific principles, and wished to form a company to that effect; he asked Metchnikoff to recommend to him some one whom he could entrust with the technical work of preparing the pure curded milk. It happened that we were just then trying to find a post for a young couple in whom we were interested, and whose child was my husband’s goddaughter. He trained his protÉgÉ in the technique required, and was therefore able to recommend him. Such are the facts. “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” The desire to lessen the ills around him was, in general, the cause of heavy anxieties in his later years. He had learnt that the discovery of an industrial process, of which the realisation required capital, would be an excellent investment. He immediately wished to make his friends profit by it, as well as himself, in order to alleviate material difficulties. But until the end of his life the undertaking had no He knew not how to refuse, even when he should have done so; therefore he was odiously exploited. Often he worked, in his rare leisure moments, for people who were unworthy of his kindness. During the last years of his life, all these incidents grieved him so much that he used to say he felt the burden of existence. His soul was darkened, he felt very depressed, and his health suffered. We spent the summer holidays of 1913 at St. LÉger-en-Yvelines, a pretty place on the edge of the Rambouillet forest. In his choice of a holiday resort, my husband was always guided by the desire to find a place favourable to my sketching, and St. LÉger answered the purpose wonderfully. The fields with their vast horizons, the forest with its graceful bracken and carpets of softly-tinted heather, the mysterious ponds, all went to compose an admirable symphony, full of artistic suggestion. Elie himself was gay and full of spirits. He worked in the morning, and we spent the rest of the day in the forest. He often read aloud; he rested and enjoyed the peaceful calm, pure air, and verdure which he loved so much. He had arranged to take advantage of these holidays to execute work of which he had been thinking for a long time. As it has been said above, he thought that the life instinct was only developed gradually and produced at the same time an optimistic conception of life; he wished to verify this personal impression by the psychological evolution of divers other thinkers. He turned to Maeterlinck, as a representative of modern ideas. This author, Time flowed peacefully between rest and these occupations; at the end of the holidays, we congratulated ourselves on their result on my husband’s health; on our return, his friends thought him looking well. Yet on the 19th October, about seven in the morning, he had a terrible cardiac attack without any apparent cause. I found him seated at his desk, and was terrified by his appearance; his lips were blue, and he was breathing with difficulty. And yet he was writing, and this is what he was writing: SÈvres, 19th October 1913, 7.45 A.M. This morning, after a good night, my heart was working well; I had from 58 to 59 regular pulsations. But, as I rose, I suddenly felt acute pain along the sternum; at the same time began a strong crisis of tachycardia. I had never in my life felt anything like it.... Here he had to stop as the crisis was becoming intolerable, but a few hours later he took up his pen again: 19th October, 3 P.M. The crisis lasted till one o’clock (six hours’ duration). There were times when the pain in the chest was unendurable. I was thirsty and drank hot, weak tea; I vomited; I felt wind in the stomach and the intestine. About noon the pain decreased, but the heart-beats were frequent and extremely But the opposite happened. From the first mouthfuls (I naturally eat very little) the pain became more tolerable and the pulse less frequent. After lunch, everything became normal again; the pain ceased, the pulsations slackened (78-80 per min.) and became much more regular. Intermittence was rare, and I several times counted 100 regular beats in succession. I remained absolutely conscious during the whole crisis, and what chiefly pleased me is that I felt no fear of death, which I was expecting at every moment. It was not only reasoning which made me understand that it was better to die now, whilst my intellectual powers had not yet gone from me and I had evidently accomplished all of what I was capable; I resigned myself also in feeling, and quite serenely to the catastrophe which was coming upon me and which would be far from unexpected. My mother, who had suffered from heart attacks during a great part of her life, died at 65. My father died of apoplexy in his 68th year. My eldest sister succumbed to an oedema of the brain; my brother Nicholas died at 57 of angina pectoris. Undoubtedly my cardiac heredity is a bad one. Already in my youth, I suffered from my heart. At 33 I had such cardiac pains that sometimes I had to rest after walking a few paces. At 34, I had much giddiness and a feeling of heaviness in the head. I could not read a few lines, a poster even, without a painful sensation. In 1881, during relapsing fever, I had severe cardiac intermittence, very fatiguing and only relieved by small doses of digitalin. I afterwards had periodical attacks of intermittence but never any tachycardia, at least none that lasted more than a few seconds. A little tincture of strophanthus used to relieve me during intermittence. I ended by consulting Dr. Vaquez, but the treatment he prescribed gave me no relief. As I attributed my condition to poisoning by the toxins of intestinal microbes, I resolved to give up raw food and to purge myself now and then with CarabaÑa water. The success of this It was only after my journey to Russia in 1909 that a notable aggravation supervened. I felt acute pains in the chest, along the sternum, especially after eating or walking. In 1911 the intermittence reappeared. In January 1911, I consulted Dr. Heitz in order to know whether I could undertake an expedition in the Kalmuk steppes, where hygienic conditions are very unfavourable. Dr. Heitz found my heart hypertrophied, some slight galloping noise, the blood-pressure (Pachon’s apparatus) 17-16-15. He said, however, that I might undertake the journey, but added, “People die suddenly with less the matter than that with their hearts.” The journey went well, though I suffered from frequent intermittence and pains along the sternum when I walked. After my return, my heart was fairly satisfactory. What consoles me especially is that I have preserved my activity, my passion for work, and my intellectual powers. But, naturally, I am ready to die at any moment. At the beginning of the summer I was sounded by Dr. Manoukhine and Professor Tchistovitch; both thought the heart-sounds satisfactory, but Manoukhine was rather struck by the weakness of the first aortic sound whilst the second was very strong. I had frequent intermittence, but with intervals of normal pulsations. Latterly I have felt better in that respect, and the pain along the sternum only occurred in exceptional cases. Whilst preparing for my end, I am glad that I can face it with courage and serenity. As I look back upon my life, it seems to me to have been as “orthobiotic” as possible. If it may seem premature to die at 68 years and 5 months, it must not be forgotten that I began to live very early (I published my first scientific work at 18); that I have had many emotions during my life; that I was, so to speak, in a state of continual ebullition. The polemics concerning phagocytosis might have killed or finally enfeebled me much earlier. At times (for instance, I refer to Lubarsch’s attacks in 1889 and those of Pfeiffer in 1894) I was ready to rid myself of life. Moreover, I only began to follow a rational hygiene (according to my opinion) after I was 53 years old and already had symptoms of arterio-sclerosis. I have been fairly successful in combating intestinal putrefaction (phenols and indols), To sum up, I rejoice that I have had an existence not devoid of sense, and I feel some satisfaction in considering my conception of the problem of life as being accurate. As I prepare to die, I have not the shadow of a hope of a life beyond, and I calmly look forward to complete annihilation. It is possible that having very early begun a very intense life, I have attained at 68 a precocious satiety of living, just as certain women cease to menstruate earlier than the great majority. El. Metchnikoff. P.S.—I believe everything is in order in view of my end (my will, my affairs, etc.). P.S.—Let those who think that, according to my principles, I should have lived a hundred years, “forgive” me my premature end in view of the extenuating circumstances above-mentioned (intense and precocious activity, excitable temperament, nervous disposition, and late beginning of the rational diet). E. M. The very next day he felt well enough to return to his work. When urged to settle down in Paris in order to avoid the fatigue of the journey, he replied that the peace and pure air of SÈvres were indispensable to his health, that the journey did not fatigue him in the least, but on the contrary provided him with wholesome exercise and a pleasant walk. Knowing how prudent he was, I did not dare to insist for fear of mistaking what was really best for him. And life gradually resumed its normal course.... For a long time Metchnikoff had been observing himself very attentively; he took regular notes on the influence of the food diet which he followed; by the analysis of his urine, he sought for indications respecting the toxic products of his intestinal flora; he studied upon himself the advance of senility, whitening of hair, etc. Since his crisis he had adopted the habit of writing occasional notes on his psychical state. This is what he wrote on the 23rd December 1913 at SÈvres: Two months and more have passed since I wrote the preceding lines. During that period my health has been satisfactory; nevertheless I have wondered every day whether it would be my last. I am therefore hastening to write my memoir on infantile cholera. The cardiac intermittence has been more or less frequent, yet every day I have had periods of regular pulsations (58-66-72 per minute) as usual. The day before yesterday I contracted a bad cold, accompanied by a little fever. Wondering if it would degenerate into pneumonia, I faced anew the possibility of a near end, and I resumed the analysis of my thoughts, feelings, and sensations. As my 70 years draw near to their close, it seems to me that a feeling of satiety with life, what I call the “natural death instinct,” is gently beginning to evolve. When, in autumn 1910, experimenting with typhoid cultures, I had soiled my face and mouth, I naturally said to myself that it might give me typhoid fever. I washed my face and beard with soap and a solution of sublimate without considering that I was safe against the infection. I reasoned that it would be preferable to contract the disease and to die of it. (At my age typhoid fever is almost always fatal. I had never had it, and might therefore consider myself in a state of receptivity.) It is fine to fall on the battlefield, especially at an age when life and activity are already on the wane. But all that was pure reasoning; instinctively I still felt a great desire to live, and it was with joy that I counted the days which separated me from the danger of having contracted typhoid fever. I felt much relieved a fortnight after the incident, considering that the limit of incubation was passed. Thus reasoning and feeling or instinct were not in accord. Since then, in the three following years, a modification has taken place in my psychical condition. The prospect of death frightens me less than before. During my cardiac crisis of the 19th October 1913 I even felt no fear of death, and my satisfaction at my recovery was less than before. I think it is that difference in quantity which constitutes the first symptoms of indifference towards death, an indifference which is hardly perceptible at first. Satiety with life is sometimes observed in old people of 80; it is not surprising to feel the first approach of it about 70, especially in the case of a man like myself who began very early to lead a very intense life. Other special circumstances influence even more this precocious satiety of life. As I become more indifferent to my own life I feel a more and more acute anxiety for the health, life, and happiness of those who are dear to me. I am especially troubled by a consciousness of the imperfection of modern medicine. In spite of the progress Pulmonary lesions (tuberculosis, pneumonia, etc.), the nephrites, and an infinite quantity of other diseases can yet neither be prevented nor cured. So we live in constant fear for those we love. When medicine shall (as I am persuaded) have conquered all these evils, one cause of the bitterness of life will cease—but that is not yet the case. That is why, besides the weakening of the life-instinct, a resignation towards death grows in us, as a means of no longer feeling the ills which afflict our neighbours. With time, when that source of unhappiness has been eliminated by medicine, old age will be more attractive, and an orthobiotic life will become normal and realisable. At the ages of 50, 60, 65, I felt an intense joy in living, such as I described in my Studies on Human Nature and Optimistic Essays. In the last few years it has lessened markedly. Scientific work still provokes in me an invincible enthusiasm, but I am becoming more indifferent to many of the pleasures of life. And indeed he no longer had the joyous soul of former days; into his life a funereal note had crept, low but continuous and obstinate. He gave all the more energy to the study of those questions the solution of which was to bring about the reign of orthobiosis. He spent the whole winter in researches on the intestinal flora and on the completion of his studies on infantile cholera. In the spring, on the occasion of his anniversary, he wrote the following: SÈvres, 16th May 1914. I have to-day entered my 70th year; it is a great event for me. As I analyse my feelings, I realise more and more the weakening of my “life-instinct.” In order to verify my impressions, I wished to hear again I observe the same change in other circumstances. This spring, the blossoming of flowers, buds, bushes, and trees, all this renascence of nature, has not excited in me a shadow of the emotion of preceding years. Rather I felt a melancholy, not on account of my coming end, but because of the consciousness of the burden of existence. There is no question for me now of the old joy of living; my predominant feeling is infinite anxiety for the health and happiness of those I love. I now so well understand Pettenkoffer, who committed suicide at 84 after losing all his family. Their death had evidently been precocious because of the impotence of medicine. At every step, one comes across cases where neither hygiene nor therapeutics can do anything. How many are infected with tuberculosis, no one knows how or where. What is to be done to avoid it? And the consequences of measles, of scarlet fever, perhaps of a simple sore throat, followed sometimes by tuberculosis or nephritis! What is the use of being able to foretell, by means of the proportion of urea in the blood, the precise moment of the death of an “azotemic” patient when you cannot prevent it or cure him? This imperfection of medical science prevents many from reaching true orthobiosis, and it is understandable that, seeing the present state of medicine, the feeling of the “burden of existence” may be precocious, as in my case. But it is indubitable that, in spite of the slowness with which medical science is developing, it will in the future reach a degree which will enable us to cease to tremble any longer before all sorts of incurable diseases. Orthobiosis will then appear, no longer under its present incomplete form, but as the solid and essential basis of life. |
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