Editing Élie Metchnikoff (section)

==Early life, family and education==
[[File:Leo Tolstoy & Ilya Mechnikov.jpg|thumb|left|[[Leo Tolstoy]] (left) and Metchnikoff]]

Metchnikoff was born in the village of {{ill|Ivanivka, Dvorichna rural hromada|lt=Ivanovka|uk|Іванівка (Дворічанський район)}}, [[Kharkov Governorate]], in the [[Russian Empire]], now located in [[Kupiansk Raion]], [[Kharkiv Oblast]] in Ukraine. He was the youngest of five children of Ilya Ivanovich Mechnikov, an officer of the [[Imperial Guard (Russia)|Imperial Guard]].<ref name= nobelbio/> His mother, Emilia Lvovna (Nevakhovich), the daughter of the writer [[Löb Nevakhovich|Leo Nevakhovich]], largely influenced him on his education, especially in science.<ref name=encyclo>{{cite web|title=Metchnikoff, Elie|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Elie_Metchnikoff.aspx|website=Dictionary of Scientific Biography| access-date=16 March 2015}}</ref><ref name= "Life of"/> The Nevakhovich family was Jewish.<ref name="nobelbio" />

The family name Mechnikov is a translation from Romanian, since his father was a descendant of the Chancellor [[Yuri Stefanovich Spătarul|Yuri Stefanovi]], the grandson of [[Nikolai Spathari|Nicolae Milescu Spătarul]]. Yuri Stefanovich immigrated to Russia together with [[Dimitrie Cantemir]] in 1711 after the unsuccessful campaign of [[Peter the Great|Peter I]] on the [[Danubian Principalities]]. For two and a half centuries, the Mechnikov family lived in St. Petersburg, where it became connected by family ties with many Russian princely families. The word "mech" is a Russian translation of the Romanian "spadă" (sword), which originated with [[Historical Romanian ranks and titles|Spătar]] (Sword-bearer). His elder brother [[Lev Metchnikoff|Lev]] became a prominent geographer and sociologist.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= White |first1= James D|title=Despotism and Anarchy: The Sociological Thought of L. I. Mechnikov|journal=[[The Slavonic and East European Review]]| year= 1976 |volume= 54 |issue= 3 |pages=395–411|jstor=4207300}}</ref>

In 1856, Metchnikoff entered the Kharkov Lycée, where he developed his interest in biology. Convinced by his mother to study [[natural sciences]] instead of medicine, in 1862 he tried to study biology at the [[University of Würzburg]], but the German academic session would not start by the end of the year. Metchnikoff thus enrolled at [[National University of Kharkiv|Kharkov Imperial University]] for [[natural sciences]], completing his four-year degree in two years.

In 1864, he traveled to Germany to study marine [[fauna (animals)|fauna]] on the small [[North Sea]] island of [[Heligoland]]. He was advised by the botanist [[Ferdinand Cohn]] to work with [[Rudolf Leuckart]] at the [[University of Giessen]]. It was in Leuckart's laboratory that he made his first scientific discovery of [[alternation of generations]] (sexual and asexual) in [[nematodes]] ([[Chaetosomatida]]) and then at the [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich|University of Munich]]. In 1865, while at Giessen, he discovered intracellular digestion in [[trematoda|flatworm]], and this study influenced his later works. Moving to [[Naples]] the next year he worked on a doctoral thesis on the embryonic development of the cuttle-fish ''[[Sepiola]]'' and the crustacean ''[[Nebalia]]''. A [[cholera]] epidemic in the autumn of 1865 made him move to the [[University of Göttingen]], where he worked briefly with W. M. Keferstein and [[Jakob Henle]].

In 1867, he returned to Russia to receive his doctorate with [[Alexander Kovalevsky]] from the [[Saint Petersburg State University|University of Saint Petersburg]]. Together they won the Karl Ernst von Baer prize for their theses on the development of germ layers in invertebrate embryos.