The prolongation of life : optimistic studies / by Élie Metchnikoff ; English translation edited by P. Chalmers Mitchell.

  • Élie Metchnikoff
Date:
1907
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The prolongation of life : optimistic studies / by Élie Metchnikoff ; English translation edited by P. Chalmers Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THEORIES OF CAUSATION OF SENILITY 19 i Neurologists in particular, hâve criticised my interpréta^ tion. For several years M. Marinesco^ has attacked my theory of the atrophy of the nerve-cells in old âge. In the first place, he has stated that in old people, and even if these are very old, it is rare to find phagocytes surrounding and devoiiring the cells of the brain. In support of this contention, he has been good enough to send me two pré- parations made from the brains of two very old persons. After careful examination I was convinced that my oppo- nent had been inexact. In the brain of the two centenarians (one of whom died at the âge of 117 years) there were very many nerve-cells surrounded by phagocytes and in process of being destroyed by them. It happened, however, that as the sections were very weakly stained, it was more difh- cult to observe the facts than in the préparations upon | which I had made my own observations. I hâve already recorded this fact in the second and third French éditions > of the “ Nature of Man.” Without taking notice of my reply, M. Marinesco has published another criticism of my theory in an article ^ entitled ” Histological Investigations into the Mechanism of Senility.” In that work, although he himself had invented the désignation “ neuronophag ” for a phagocyte that devours nerve-cells, he déniés the existence of such a power. He thinks that nerve-cells atrophy independently of the cells that surround them. The latter, the so-called neur- onophags, only contribute to the atrophy inasmuch as they press against the nerve-cells and deprive them of nutrition. r He is confident that the constituent parts of nerve-cells are r never found in the neuronophags. There is no question of ^ • i ] ^ Comf,tes retidns de P Académie des sciences^ 23 April, 1900. i ^ Revue générale des sciefices, 30 Dec., 1904, p. 1116. C 2 I