Happiness and misfortune of Ilya Mechnikov: Why the great scientist twice tried to commit suicide

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The great biologist, who devoted his life to science, wrote many works in the field of cytology and bacteriology, immunology and physiology, became a Nobel Prize laureate and dreamed of finding a cure for old age. His name is inscribed in history in golden letters, however, there were periods in the life of Ilya Mechnikov when his hands were discouraged from powerlessness, and he himself did not see a way out of the situation. Fortunately, two of his attempts to commit suicide were unsuccessful.

Love for science

The future scientist was born in 1845 in the Kharkov province, in the Ivanovka estate, which belonged to his father. In total, Ilya Ivanovich and Emilia Lvovna Mechnikov had five children, four sons and a daughter. The three elders were born in St. Petersburg, and by the time of the birth of his two younger sons, Ilya Ivanovich managed to lose his entire fortune at cards and return to his family estate in the Kupyansk district.

Ilya Mechnikov was the youngest, but at the same time the most inquisitive in the family. From an early age, he could enthusiastically observe the activities of living beings, and after that he shared his impressions with the village children, giving them lectures on the development of, for example, frogs. Peers listened to the young speaker, although young Mechnikov paid each listener two kopecks an hour.

At first, the future scientist was homeschooled, then he entered the Kharkov gymnasium. By the time it ended, he already knew what he would do in life. After receiving a certificate and a gold medal, Ilya Mechnikov became a student of the natural sciences department of Kharkov University. A year later, he transferred to a free student with the right to pass qualifying exams. In 1864, Ilya Ilyich graduated from the university and took up science in earnest.

Great discoveries, fascinating research and great love awaited him. True, all this might not have happened if at least one of his suicide attempts were crowned with success.

First marriage

The young scientist's enthusiasm for science in no way prevented him from arranging his personal life. At one time he believed that his wife needed to be raised by himself, but falling in love for the first time, he left his ideas. Ilya Mechnikov first married in 1869 the charming Lyudmila Fedorovich, “Liu,” as he affectionately called his bride.

They met in the house of Professor Andrei Beketov. When Mechnikov fell ill with a severe form of angina, Lyudmila Fedorovich took care of him in her uncle's house. Lyudmila and the young scientist became very close, serious feelings arose between them, and as a result, Mechnikov proposed to a girl who was touchingly caring for her beloved.

Unfortunately, his chosen one was sick with tuberculosis, and even at the wedding in the church she was literally brought in and seated on a chair. But Mechnikov believed: he could help his wife. Immediately after the wedding, the newlyweds went to Italy, where Lyudmila was to be treated. The Petersburg climate did not suit the scientist's wife very well.

But Lyudmila Fedorovich's treatment did not help. Just four years after the wedding, the young woman passed away in Madeira. Ilya Ilyich, distinguished by a very impulsive disposition, was so depressed by the death of his wife that he decided to follow after her. Fortunately, excitement prevented the scientist from correctly calculating the dose, and the attempt was unsuccessful. But there was an addiction to morphine, with which Mechnikov later had to fight.

Harmonious happiness

Two years after the death of Lyudmila, Ilya Ilyich met Olga Belokopytova, whose family lived in an apartment right above Ilya Mechnikov's dwelling. Olga was fond of zoology, which was reported to the scientist by the teacher of the Odessa women's gymnasium, where the girl studied.

Proposing to give the young schoolgirl lessons in her favorite subject, Ilya Ilyich hardly thought that this charming girl, full of life and optimism, would become his wife. But soon their activities turned into dating, and the father's objections to the marriage of his 16-year-old daughter to an almost thirty-year-old scientist could not make the lovers abandon the intention to unite their fates.

From each of his trips, Mechnikov wrote touching letters to his wife, of which about four hundred gathered in his entire life. He could not imagine how he used to live without her and in every message he confessed his love to her. It was thanks to his wife that he found the harmony he needed so much, she always supported her husband in everything. It was in his marriage with Olga that Ilya Mechnikov wrote all his most significant works and made his discoveries.

However, he almost lost his wife when she contracted typhoid fever in 1880. There was practically no hope of recovery, and the doctors warned the heartbroken Mechnikov that the forecasts were the most disappointing. This time, he decided not to wait for the death of his beloved, but to leave life with her, choosing a very extraordinary way.

The scientist voluntarily injected himself with relapsing fever, hoping before his own death and to find out if it is transmitted along with blood. However, both Mechnikov and his wife continued treatment during the illness and were able to fully restore their health.

They have lived a long and happy life together. The spouses did not have children. According to some sources, Olga could not give birth because of the prohibition of doctors, according to others, Mechnikov himself considered it a crime to "give birth to other lives."

In 1887, the couple moved to Paris, where the scientist was provided with a separate laboratory at the Pasteur Institute. 4 years later, the scientist built a real art studio for his beloved wife at their dacha near Paris. The scientist's wife has been fruitfully engaged in painting and sculpture for a long time and has taken part in international exhibitions. In addition, she often helped her husband in the laboratory, learned how to masterfully prepare preparations and cultures for experiments and lectures. Over time, she conducted several independent studies, the results of which she devoted to scientific publications.

In the last years of his life, Ilya Mechnikov was often ill, he suffered several heart attacks and died in July 1916. Olga Belokopytova, after the death of her husband, wrote a book of memoirs about her brilliant wife and kept all his archives.

Another genius scientist Albert Einstein had such fervent feelings for his classmate Mileva Maric that he even decided to marry her against the will of his parents. But family life was not at all what they both imagined. The great scientist did not know how to make his loved ones happy, and Mileva Marich managed to repeatedly regret the day when she drew attention to her classmate at the Zurich Polytechnic.