Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916) was a Russian immunologists and microbiologist and a Nobel Prize winner who first developed and popularized the idea that lactic acid-producing bacteria, particularly Lactobacilli, were beneficial to health.
In the early 1900s, Metchnikoff promoted the consumption of the yoghurt bacteria Lactobacillus bulgaricus because he observed that the yoghurt consuming Bulgarians appeared to have healthier and more long-lived people that other groups he studied.
Metchnikoff developed and perpetuated the theory that not only does the intestinal microbiota control the outcome of infection by enteric pathogens, but it also regulates the natural chronic toxemia which plays a major role in aging and mortality.
In 1884, Metchnikoff announced a novel theory of the protective role of inflammation. He discovered phagocytosis and recognized the importance of this phenomenon in the defense against infections.
The discovery of phagocytosis by Metchnikoff marks the birth of immunology. His early research was concerned with the identification of primordial embryologic structures and functions that could link them to the evolution of species; in other words, he was searching for a link between ontogeny and phylogeny.
In 1908, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded jointly to Élie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich who stressed the role of humoral antibodies on immunity.
Élie Metchnikoff contributions to immunology
Learn history of medicine, learn how the medicine provide explanations for birth, death and disease. History of medicine shows how ideas have developed over the centuries, and medicine had arrived at its modern state through the course of history.
Monday, January 23, 2017
The most popular articles
-
Biography of Hippocrates Hippocrates is referred to ‘father of medicine’ in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the ...
-
Jean-Martin Charcot (29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was the son of a carriage-maker. He was the son and grandson of Parisian carriage ma...
-
According to the CDC, arthritis accounts for 18% or nearly 9 million reports of disability, making it the number one cause of adult disabili...
-
In the United States, ALS also is called Lou Gehrig’s disease, named for the Yankees baseball player who died of it in 1941. In Britain and ...
-
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) a French mathematician and physicist developed the mathematical methods for converting data between...
-
Lazzaro Spallanzani an Italian physicist is most often credited person for discovering ultrasonography. In 1794, he analyzed the basic mecha...
-
Paracetamol is a very widely used as medicine. It is painkiller and reduces the temperature of patients with fever. These actions are know...
-
In the early 1900s an Italian radiologist named Alessandro Vallebona invented tomography which used radiographic film to see a single slice ...