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Ilya Mechnikov, the wild Russian ‘demon of science’ whom Pasteur had brought to his institute in Paris, even blamed them for old age. Mechnikov had won a Nobel Prize in 1908 for his discovery of phagocytosis – the mechanism by which immune cells in human blood swallow up harmful bacteria and destroy them. But he also suspected bacteria in the human intestine of releasing toxins that harden the arteries, contributing to the body’s ageing – a belief that brought a certain amount of ridicule down on his head. He became obsessed with villages in Bulgaria where people reputedly lived to be more than a hundred, attributing their longevity to the sour milk they drank – and in particular, to the ‘good’ bacteria that soured it. In the last years of his life, he drank huge quantities of sour milk, before dying in 1916 at the age of seventy-one.1
“Tybalt was killed, but he got better. Kings of Cats are annoying like that.”
Ashes of Honor
Seanan McGuire
The combination of the dry weather, the strong easterly wind, the firewood stored in cellars and back yards against the forthcoming winter, and the fact that the fire takes hold in the dead of night (and so has progressed considerably before people wake up) all contribute to the difficulty of containing it. The complacency of the authorities does not help. The lord mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bludworth, is too slow to order the destruction of houses with gunpowder.
The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain
Ian Mortimer
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