Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (1845 – 1916)

Every day from early childhood I drink kefir or another sour milk drink. I always knew it is good for health. It is very easy to check it. In those days, when I, for some reason forget to drink kefir or yogurt, I did not feel as good as usual. When I grew up I was wondering who made the discovery that sour milk products are good for health?

Fermented milk products people use since antiquity Fermented milk products people use since antiquity. Long ago, when there were no refrigerators, souring of milk was the only way to prolong the shelf life of the product. People around the world know a lot of recipes of sour milk products: cheese, sour cream, butter, and of course all kinds of yogurt and kefir.

Then I learned about the great Russian scientist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who proved the great benefit of sour milk products for health. Mechnikov’s works carried out a revolution in five fields. The first field is embryology, because his background was zoology and he studied embryology at the beginning. The second one is the discovery of phagocytosis, a cell immunity theory, and creating the science of immunology. The third one is developing the inflammatory process theory. The fourth field is the foundation of gerontology, the science  of aging. And the fifth one is creating probiotics and today it is an advanced science.

Ilya Mechnikov was born on 16 May 1845 to Emilia Nevahovna and Ilya Ivanovitch Mechnikov in the village of Ivanovka, near Kharkov, later part of Ukraine, but then was part of the former Russian Empire. He was the youngest of five children. Ilya Mechnikov was called a wunderkind from an early age. When other children played with construction cubes he read “scientific” lectures to his little friends about plants and animals and could watch Annelida worms for hours on end.

After leaving school with a gold medal he went to the Science Department of Kharkov University. He completed the full course of studies in two years instead of the standard four. He was only 19. And at the age of 22 he became a doctor of science and was even awarded the prize of Karl Ernst von Baer for creating a new branch of biology, evolutionary embryology. Watching jelly-fish, sponges and molluscs, the young scientists became convinced that the embryonic development of the invertebrate runs along the same lines as that of the high vertebrate. Mechnikov’s greatest discovery was the discovery of cells capable of devouring or enveloping alien bodies that get into the system. The scientist called them phagocytes and the phenomenon itself phagocytosis. In 1908, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Ehrlich for their contributions to immunology.

At the end of his life the scientist seriously studied the problems of aging. He came to the conclusion that one of the reasons for aging was “self-poisoning” of the organism with putrid substances in the intestines. He worked out a diet to promote the growth of harmless microbes in the human body and to prevent the growth of putrefactive bacilli Ilya Mechnikov founded the science of gerontology - the science of human aging. Why organisms get old? Is it possible to delay the aging?

Mechnikov discovered that eating of sour milk products extremely good for health and helps to keep organism young. Mechnikov proved this by the example of lactic bacteria Lactobacillus bulgaricus which is used for making yogurt, which we all like so much. From milk fermented with pure cultures of lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus bulgaricus and produce famous Mechnikov prostokvasha (yogurt).

In 1916, Mechnikov moved from his country house outside of Paris to the rooms at the Pasteur Institute where Pasteur had stayed during his final days. Mechnikov died at the Pasteur Institute on 15 July 1916 of cardiac failure.. The great Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov’s discoveries were made at the end of the 19th century. But they so much influenced the development of microbiology, immunology and embryology of the next century that we are fully justified in saying that Mechnikov was ahead of his time.