“I feel quite certain that there will be a change even in this. The Russian government will realize its errors and will improve the conditions of the Jewish people for its own sake if for no other reason.”
Metchnikoff studied at the university in Kharkow; trained at universities in Giessen, Gottingen, and Munich; earned his Ph.D. from the University of St. Petersburg (1867); and in 1870 was appointed professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Odessa.
He eventually resigned that position because of difficulties with the reactionary Russian government following the assassination of Alexander II. He set up a private laboratory in Messina and was later appointed by Pasteur himself as a director of the Pasteur Institute, a position he held for the rest of his life
