Plot synopsis

The eighth episode of the documentary series is dedicated to 1908 and the great Russian microbiologist Ilya Mechnikov (1845-1916).
It was in this year that the scientist became a Nobel Prize laureate. Mechnikov lived in Paris at the time and worked at the famous Pasteur Institute. Ilya Ilyich was forced to leave his homeland, where students and professors were more concerned with politics than with science and the future of humanity.
The theory of immunity developed by Mechnikov became the basis of all modern medicine, but ordinary people began to show interest in it only now, when the world was engulfed by the AIDS epidemic. The scientist believed that a person not only can, but should live for 140-150 years, for this it is only necessary to use beneficial microbes to destroy harmful ones.
100 years have passed since then, life expectancy has increased, but humanity is still far from Mechnikov's predictions... Nevertheless, more and more people begin their day according to Mechnikov's recipe for longevity - with yogurt and curdled milk.

Selected in the following festivals or events :

- Historical Chronicles with Nikolay Svanidze, (kinoglaz.fr), 2026

Photos, videos, texts

Ilia METCHNIKOV (Илья Ильич МЕЧНИКОВ) 1845-1916