During the whole of May he again had ups and downs, but the progress of the disease was indisputable.
Tachycardia was constant, urine more and more scanty, the swelling of the legs never decreased, cough and oppression occurred frequently even during the day. Elie awaited his seventy-first birthday with impatience. Often during the night, after a painful attack, he would count the days, hours, and minutes which separated him from that date. At last it arrived. Here are the lines which he added to his notes on that day:
16th May. Against all expectation, I have lived until this day. I have reached my 71 years. My dream of a rapid death without a long illness has not been realised. I have now been bedridden for five months. After several crises of tachycardia, following upon a slight grippe with asthma, I had congestion of one lung with pleuritic exudate. Though some improvement followed after that, nevertheless I am tormented by fits of sweating followed by cough and oppression. I suffer chiefly in the night from those attacks; they provoke insomnia which can only be combated by pantopon.
My psychical state is twofold. In one way, I should like to get well, but, on the other hand, I see no sense in living any longer. Illness has not provoked in me any fear of death, and I am more deprived than formerly of the joy of living. The reawakening of spring leaves me quite indifferent. There can be no question for me of that pleasure which convalescents often feel, nor indeed of any pleasure. To the despair that I feel in the face of medicine’s powerlessness to cure the ills of my friends is added the feeling of its powerlessness towards my own illness. I think that my desire to recover and to continue to live is connected with practical causes.
The war has compromised our finances, our income from Russia has practically disappeared. If I die, my wife may find herself in a very difficult situation. Given her lack of practical notions, that may lead to very sad results. Yet it is quite impossible to straighten our affairs before the end of the war and the re-establishment of normal conditions.
These were the last words he wrote in his book of notes; his hand had become weak and trembling; he tired very soon, and henceforth I wrote under his dictation. On the 18th June, one month before his cremation, he dictated to me for the last time, and this is what he said:
This is the seventh month that I have been ill and it brings my thoughts back to the gravity of my condition. I therefore continually realise how much satisfaction I have derived from life during my long years. The gradual disappearance of my “life-instinct,” which already began a few years ago, is now more marked, more precise. I no longer feel that degree of pleasure which I felt only a few years ago. My affection for my nearest and dearest shows itself much more by the anxiety and suffering provoked by their diseases and sorrows than by the pleasure I derive from their joys or normal health.
Those to whom I describe my feelings tell me that satiety with living is not normal at my age. To that I oppose the following: Longevity, at least to a certain point, is hereditary. Now I have already mentioned, on the occasion of my 70th anniversary, that my parents, sister, and brothers died before reaching my present age. I knew neither of my grandparents, which shows that they could not have been very old when they died.
Let us now turn to the profession, since it is an established fact that it has an influence on the duration of life. Pasteur died at 72, but for a long time he had been unable to do scientific work. Koch did not reach the age of 67. Other bacteriologists died at a much earlier age than I (Duclaux, Nocard, Chamberland, Ehrlich, Büchner, Loeffler, Pfeiffer, Carl Fraenkel, Emmerich, Escherich).
Among those bacteriologists of my generation who are still living the majority have already ceased from working. All that should indicate that my scientific life is over and confirm at the same time the fact that my “orthobiosis” has actually reached the desirable limit.