History of the Self: Aging

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At least, that's what the newspaper headlines said. Before long he was inundated with mail from people begging him to help them live forever. The only problem? He didn't know how to do it.

At the time, Metchnikoff was one of the world's most famous scientists. And he believed aging was a disease he could cure. He dedicated his life to that quest, spending his days interviewing centenarians, pulling gray hair out of colleagues and old dogs, and boiling strawberries — all in the pursuit of eternal youth. If you've ever had yogurt for breakfast, you likely have Metchnikoff to thank. (This episode first ran as The Man Who Cured Aging)

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from This Is History with Dan Jones, with a new season that relives the dramatic victories, bizarre parties, and deadly inventions of the Middle Ages. Join the drama and relive the Middle Ages like never before. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Around 200 BC, China's first emperor, Chin Shah Wang,
0:30.6	feared death so badly that he sent an alchemist on voyages across the sea to search for a magic elixir that would give him immortality.
0:47.5	After the alchemist disappeared at sea, the legend says the emperor took things into his own hands
0:53.8	and died after drinking what he thought
0:56.6	was a cure.
1:02.2	Around 200 years later, another legend was born.
1:08.5	A holy grail that was thought to hold life-restoring powers for anyone who drank from it.
1:14.6	There was the philosopher's stone, the fountain of youth, and then,
1:25.6	in late December of 1899, a scientist named Eli Mechnikov woke up in Paris to learn that he had done it.
1:36.7	He had found the secret to eternal life.
1:40.8	The French morning newspaper, La Matan, carried a huge headline in large block letters all across the front page, and it said,
1:50.1	Vive la vie, long live life.
1:53.7	Underneath that headline, it said things like,
1:57.0	The elixir of eternal youth, the institute of Miracle, the Institute of Miracles,
2:03.6	the Vietes Vincueyce Vincue,
2:05.6	old age defeated.
2:07.6	None of us should despair to Caesar year 2000
2:12.6	will reach the age of the Patriarch
2:15.6	and Monsieur Meshnikov will be damned only by heirs or fortunes.
2:24.3	Eli Metschnikov had captured the world's attention.
2:32.6	For millennia, people had tried to evade death, seeking cures and things like mercury, gold, powders, liquids.
2:40.7	But now they had a new tool.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.