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 from the laboratory. The institutions which had subscribed funds for the Institute were demanding practical results, while all necessary work towards that object was met by every sort of obstacle.
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.