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International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:34-35
© International Epidemiological Association 2003

Reprints and Reflections

Commentary on Cochrane AL (1934). Elie Metschnikoff and his theory of an ‘instinct de la vie’

Mark Aveline

Emeritus Consultant, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, UK.

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

When we comment on past events or ideas, our view is informed by our own time and place. Not only is it difficult, if not impossible, for us to stand outside our context and take an unprejudiced view but it is equally hard to have true sympathy with past ideas and understand from the thinker’s perspective what they believed and why. Particularly in psychology, which is more than the dispassionate weighing of evidence and the formal formation of conclusions; it is shaped by the life history of the person and the intellectual and professional preoccupations of the era. This relativistic position was certainly true of Sigmund . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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