器官錯(cuò)位的她活了99年

器官錯(cuò)位的她活了99年

On an early spring day in 2018, the faint smell of formaldehyde floating in the air, 26-year-old medical student Warren Nielsen and four of his classmates prepped a cadaver in the chilly dissection lab at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

2018年早春的一天，空氣中飄著淡淡的甲醛味，26歲的醫(yī)科學(xué)生沃倫·尼爾森(Warren Nielsen)和四名同學(xué)在寒冷的解剖實(shí)驗(yàn)室里準(zhǔn)備了一具尸體。解剖室位于波特蘭的俄勒岡健康與科學(xué)大學(xué)(Oregon Health and Science University)。

Similar groups of five gathered around bodies on the other 15 tables in the anatomy class, all eager to explore the mysteries of the human body they had seen only in textbooks.

在解剖學(xué)課上，其他15張桌子上也有類似的五人小組，他們都熱切地想探索他們只在課本上見過(guò)的人體之謎。

The cadaver assigned to Nielsen's team was a 99-year-old woman who had died of natural causes. Her name was Rose Marie Bentley, but the students didn't know that then. To honor and respect the privacy of those who offer their bodies to science, no further details are given medical students about the person who had once inhabited the body lying on the silvery slab before them.

尼爾森團(tuán)隊(duì)的尸體是一名99歲的自然死亡女性。她的名字叫羅斯·瑪麗·本特利，但當(dāng)時(shí)學(xué)生們并不知道。為了尊重和尊重那些把自己的身體奉獻(xiàn)給科學(xué)的人的隱私，關(guān)于是誰(shuí)曾經(jīng)擁有現(xiàn)在躺在他們面前的銀色平板上的尸體的細(xì)節(jié)并沒(méi)有提供給醫(yī)學(xué)生。

But as the students and their professors were soon to find out, Bentley was special, so special she deserved her own unique spot in medical literature and history books.

但是學(xué)生們和他們的教授們很快就發(fā)現(xiàn)，本特利很特別，所以她值得在醫(yī)學(xué)文學(xué)和歷史書籍中擁有自己獨(dú)特的地位。

The reason? A condition called situs inversus with levocardia, in which most vital organs are reversed -- almost like a mirror inside the body. That, along with a host of other weird but wonderful abnormalities, made Bentley a sort of medical unicorn.

原因?這是一種叫做左心靜脈曲張(situs inversus with levocardia)的情況，在這種情況下，大多數(shù)重要器官都發(fā)生了逆轉(zhuǎn)——幾乎就像體內(nèi)的一面鏡子。這一點(diǎn)，加上許多其他奇怪但奇妙的異常，使賓利成為一種醫(yī)學(xué)上的獨(dú)角獸。

"I think the odds of finding another person like her may be as remote as one in 50 million," said assistant professor Cameron Walker, who teaches the Foundations of Clinical Anatomy class at Oregon Health and Science University. "I don't think any of us will ever forget it, honestly."

“我認(rèn)為找到另一個(gè)像她這樣的人的幾率可能只有五千萬(wàn)分之一，”在俄勒岡健康與科學(xué)大學(xué)教授臨床解剖學(xué)基礎(chǔ)課程的助理教授卡梅隆·沃克(Cameron Walker)說(shuō)。“說(shuō)實(shí)話，我不認(rèn)為我們?nèi)魏稳藭?huì)忘記這件事。”

'This is totally backwards'

“這完全是顛倒過(guò)來(lái)的”

On this March day, the assignment was to open the body's chest cavity to examine the heart. It wasn't long before Nielsen's group began to question their fledgling medical knowledge.

今年3月的這一天，醫(yī)生的任務(wù)是打開病人的胸腔檢查心臟。不久，尼爾森的團(tuán)隊(duì)就開始質(zhì)疑他們剛剛起步的醫(yī)學(xué)知識(shí)。

"Her heart was missing a large vein that's normally on the right side," Nielsen said.

尼爾森說(shuō):“她的心臟失去了正常情況下位于右側(cè)的一根大血管。”

Bewildered, he and his team called the professors over and asked: "Where's the inferior vena cava? Are we missing it? Are we crazy?"

他和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)困惑地把教授們叫了過(guò)來(lái)，問(wèn)道:“下腔靜脈在哪里?”我們錯(cuò)過(guò)了嗎?我們是瘋了嗎?”

"And they kind of rolled their eyes," Nielsen said, "Like, 'how can these students miss this big vessel?' And they come over and that's when the hubbub starts. They're like 'Oh, my God, this is totally backwards!' "

尼爾森說(shuō):“他們翻了個(gè)白眼，‘這些學(xué)生怎么會(huì)錯(cuò)過(guò)這么大的靜脈呢?“他們過(guò)來(lái)了，就在這時(shí)，喧鬧開始了。他們會(huì)說(shuō)，‘哦，天哪，這完全是顛倒過(guò)來(lái)的!’”

A typical body has a large vein called the vena cava that follows the right side of the vertebral column, curving under the liver and emptying deoxygenated blood into the heart.

典型的身體有一條叫做腔靜脈的大靜脈，沿著脊柱的右側(cè)彎曲，在肝臟下面彎曲，將去氧的血液排入心臟。

Bentley's vein was on the left, and instead of terminating directly into the heart, which is typical, "her vein continued through her diaphragm, along the thoracic vertebrae, up and around and over the aortic arch and then emptied into the right side of her heart," Walker said.

本特利的靜脈在左側(cè)，而不是直接終止于心臟，這是典型的，“她的靜脈繼續(xù)通過(guò)她的橫膈膜，沿著胸椎，向上，圍繞和越過(guò)主動(dòng)脈弓，然后排空到她的心臟右側(cè)，”沃克說(shuō)。

"Normally speaking, none of us have a vessel that does that directly," he added.

“通常情況下，我們都沒(méi)有直接這樣做的靜脈，”他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)。

'Mom would have been so tickled'

“媽媽會(huì)很開心的”

Rose Marie Phelps was born in 1918 in Waldport, a small town on the Oregon coast. The youngest child of four, "she was babied," said daughter Patti Helmig, who at 78 is the oldest of her five children. "She would admit she was spoiled."

羅斯·瑪麗·菲爾普斯1918年出生在俄勒岡州海岸小鎮(zhèn)沃爾德波特。現(xiàn)年78歲的女兒帕蒂·赫爾米格是她五個(gè)孩子中最大的一個(gè)。“她會(huì)承認(rèn)自己被寵壞了。”

A hairdresser by trade, Bentley was always fascinated by science, Helmig remembered, and she believes her mother would have made a fine nurse if she had been given the opportunity to train.

赫爾米格回憶說(shuō)，本特利是一名職業(yè)理發(fā)師，她總是對(duì)科學(xué)著迷。她相信，如果有機(jī)會(huì)接受培訓(xùn)，她的母親會(huì)成為一名出色的護(hù)士。

"She volunteered during World War II for one of the nurse's aid corps," Helmig said. "And she was thrilled when someone reached out to her about doing a study on smallpox survivors, which she had as a child."

赫爾米格說(shuō):“二戰(zhàn)期間，她自愿參加了一個(gè)護(hù)士援助團(tuán)。“當(dāng)有人向她提出要對(duì)天花幸存者進(jìn)行研究時(shí)，她非常激動(dòng)。她小時(shí)候就有這項(xiàng)研究。”