Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov really, really loved his wife.

How much did he love her? After his dear Ludmila lost her battle with tuberculosis, Mechnikov decided that life was no longer worth living. He took a heavy dose of opium, attempting to join his beloved in eternal respite.

Well, maybe Mechnikov's opium dealer decided to give him the cheap stuff, or maybe the dose was just not large enough. Whatever the case was, Mechnikov didn't die. And no, he didn't decide to off himself again. Instead, he devoted the rest of his life to fighting tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. He even won the Nobel in Medicine in 1908, sharing it with fellow Jew, Paul Ehrlich.

Oh. And two years after his poor wife's death, two years after that suicide attempt, Mechnikov re-married.

Our guess is that he really loved his new, much younger wife as well...