Did you know that Ilya Metchnikov (1845-1916), the man accredited with inventing the term ‘phagocytes’ was not a medical doctor or a haematologist.
He was born near Kharkiv. He was Professor of Zoology at the University of Odessa (now Ukraine)) where his primary interest was the behaviour of wandering amoeboid cells in the tissue of the marine sponge. His moat famous experiment was the introduction of small thorns Into starfish only to find the thorns surrounded by ‘phagocytes. He surmised that phagocytosis might be an important mechanism in fighting infection; he was correct! 1882 he migrated to Messina in Sicily where he subsequently met Virchow and Paul Erlich.
In 1888 he was invited to join the Pasteur Institute as Chef de Service.
He shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine of Physiology in 1908 with Paul Erlich.
Ilya Metchnikov
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