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【How a 1959 Discovery Is Saving Premature Babies Today】
TEXT:This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
這里是美國之音慢速英語健康報道。
We told you last week about a study which found that more than ten percent of all babies worldwide are born too early. One common problem in preterm babies is respiratory disease. The lungs are the last organs to develop. But a medicine called surfactant can save babies struggling to breathe.
上周，我們告訴你一項研究，全世界超過10%的嬰兒早產。早產兒常見問題之一是呼吸系統疾病。肺是最后發育的器官。但是，一種被稱為表面活性劑 的藥物可以拯救呼吸困難的嬰兒。
The story of this lifesaving medicine begins with a discovery in nineteen fifty-nine by a researcher named Mary Ellen Avery. She told this story in two thousand five to Children's News at Children's Hospital Boston, where she was the first woman to serve as physician-in-chief.
這種救命藥的故事始于1959年一位名為Mary Ellen Avery的研究員的發現。2005年她向波士頓兒童醫院的《兒童新聞》講述了這一故事，在那里，她是第一位擔任主任醫師的女性。
She had been doing research at the Harvard School of Public Health. She was asked to find out more about the foam that forms in the lungs of people with a condition called pulmonary edema. At night she worked in a hospital delivery room. She saw many premature babies with hyaline membrane disease, now called respiratory distress syndrome.
她曾在哈佛大學公共衛生學院從事研究工作。她被要求找出更多有關人們形成肺水腫的信息。晚上她在一家醫院的產房工作，看到了許多患有肺透明膜病，現在被稱為呼吸窘迫綜合征的早產兒。
She examined the lungs of babies who had died. She found there was no air in their lungs, and she discovered why. In her words, "The material that was important -- the foam -- was missing, and they were struggling to re-inflate their lungs. Nature put this foam, or surfactant, in the lung to lower surface tension. You cannot keep air spaces inflated without it."
她檢查了已經死亡嬰兒的肺部。發現在他們的肺部沒有空氣，并且找出了原因。用她的話來說，“這種非常重要的泡沫物質消失了，而它們在竭力重新擴張肺部。造物主向肺部注入這種活性物質來降低肺泡表面張力。如果沒有它，就沒法保證肺泡空隙膨脹?！?/span>
Babies usually develop this coating while they are in the womb, but many premature babies do not.
嬰兒通常會在子宮孕育期間生成這種表面活性物質，但許多早產兒并沒有生成這種物質。
Finally, in nineteen eighty, a Japanese pediatrician, Tetsuro Fujiwara, published a study about an artificial surfactant. It could be given to a baby and, within minutes, the baby could breathe.
最后，在1980年，日本兒科醫生Tetsuro Fujiwara發表了一篇有關人工表面活性劑的研究。它可以提供給嬰兒，嬰兒在幾分鐘之內就能呼吸。
The medical community had taken years to accept Dr. Avery's discovery. But she said in a Harvard Medical School interview in nineteen eighty-two that she never gave up.
醫學界花了很多年才接Avery醫生的發現。但她1982年在哈佛醫學院的面試中說，她從來沒有放棄。
MARY ELLEN AVERY: "Hanging in there is key, I think. Knowing what you want to do and not being easily discouraged is key, particularly in research. You know, you're always moving into the unknown. And you can spend months trying to prove something, only to find that you made some terrible mistakes and you have to be willing to say 'six months of my life and my hard work went down the drain,' and you have to start over -- that's terrible discouragement."
MARY ELLEN AVERY：“關鍵就是堅持，我想。知道你想要做什么，同時不要輕易氣餒是關鍵，尤其是在研究中。你知道，你在不確定中前進。你可能花幾個月時間試圖證明一些東西，結果卻發現自己犯了一些可怕的錯誤同時不得不說，‘我這六個月的辛勤工作都成了泡影?！惚仨氈匦麻_始，這太令人沮喪了?！?/span>
Dr. Anne Hansen in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Children's Hospital Boston remembers the first time she heard about Dr. Avery. It was in nineteen ninety, when the government was in the process of approving an early surfactant called Exosurf. The attending doctor she was working with in the unit had some news for her.
波士頓兒童醫院新生兒重癥監護室的Anne Hansen醫生還記得自己第一次聽到Avery醫生。那是在1990年，當時政府正在審批一種名為Exosurf的早期表面活性劑。
ANNE HANSEN: "And the attending [doctor] who I was on with said, 'When you're on call tonight, if there's a baby who's born who's premature, you should watch very closely the natural history of that disease, because this is the last night before we're going to start giving Exosurf to all our preterm babies, so this will be your last chance ever in your life to see what a preterm baby does when they don't receive Exosurf.' And then he told me the whole story of Dr. Avery and her discoveries."
ANNE HANSEN：“當時和我一起值班的主治醫生說，'當你晚上值班時，如果有早產兒，你應該密切觀察這種疾病的自然歷程，因為這是我們將開始對早產兒使用Exosurf前的最后一個夜晚，因此這將是你生命中看到未使用Exosurf的早產兒的最后一次機會。' 然后他告訴我Avery醫生與其發現的全部故事。
Mary Ellen Avery was eighty-four years old when she died last December fourth.
Mary Ellen Avery去年12月4日去世，享年84歲。
