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; our links with Russia had gradually loosened. He had resigned from the University, discord reigned at the Odessa Bacteriological Institute, conditions of life in Russia were very unfavourable to scientific activity; in a word, “obstacles from above, from below, and from all sides,”—as Metchnikoff expressed it,—gradually led to his resolution to leave his native country.
[CHAPTER XXI]
Hygiene Congress in Vienna — Wiesbaden — Munich — Paris and Pasteur — Berlin and Koch — Failure of anthrax vaccination of sheep — Decision to leave Russia.