“The amazing gift of scientific imagination and foresight” to the 180th anniversary of the birth of the honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences I.I. Mechnikov

The article is a brief overview of the biography and main scientific achievements of the outstanding Russian scientist, Nobel laureate I.I. Mechnikov. Much attention is paid to the early embryological (zoological) experiments and observations, thanks to which in 1882–1883 Mechnikov discovered the fundamental cellular immune response - phagocytosis, and soon described the main elements of the complex immune system of animals and humans. It is difficult to find another example in the history of science of the unexpected use of the results obtained in the study of the embryonic development of lower animals to describe the mechanisms characteristic of the organism of higher animals and humans. This is an amazing intellectual foresight and generalization based on scientific intuition. I.I. Mechnikov entered the history of science as the organizer and head of the largest international scientific school in immunology, bacteriology, infectious pathology, anthropology and gerontology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, thanks to which the Institute became one of the largest scientific centers in the world. The article is based on archival sources, including reports of the department headed by Mechnikov at the Pasteur Institute for 1900–1912 and from the personal collection of I.I. Mechnikov (No. 584) in the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, as well as his publications for 1889–1916 in the journal “Annales de l`Institut Pasteur” and the proceedings of international congresses of that time.