關于Karl Barry Sharpless 的一只眼睛是怎么瞎的

關于Karl Barry Sharpless (2001年和2022年諾貝爾化學獎得主) 的一只眼睛是怎么瞎的

這一陣子安全事故不斷, 先是UCLA翻叔丁基鋰舊賬, 然后是Scripps氟化氫氣瓶泄漏, 學術圈里面又開始攪安全話題了. 天王同學無意提到了KBS的一只眼睛是瞎的, 就廢了點勁兒找到了這篇KBS的自白~~~

原文出處: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1992/safety-0311.htm

lThe following essay was written some time ago, but continues to pop up on laboratory doors around MIT, most recently at the Ceramics Processing Research Laboratory where it was read by a Tech Talk reporter. It is reprinted here with Dr. Sharpless' permission in an effort to reach everyone in the MIT community. Dr. Sharpless was a long-time member of the MIT faculty, last holding the Arthur C. Cope Professorship in Chemistry. He is now at the Scripps Research Institute in California.

Many of you may know that I was blinded in one eye during a lab accident in 1970, shortly after I arrived at MIT as an assistant professor. I always wore glasses whenever I was at my bench, and while I felt I conscientiously observed safety measures, my experience proves one can't be too cautious about wearing safety glasses.

許多人都知道, 在我1970年到MIT當助教授以后, 在一次早期實驗室事故中弄瞎了一只眼睛. 我在工作臺上總是戴著防護鏡, 而我通過安全審查之后我的經驗告訴我不需要對戴防護鏡太在意.

As I prepared to go home from the lab during the early hours of the morning of the accident, I looked in the bays to see what my co-workers were doing, and then returned to my own bench, removed my safety glasses, and put on my parka. As I was walking to the door, I passed the bench where a first-year graduate student was flame-sealing an NMR tube. I asked how it was going, and he replied, "Good, I've got it sealed."

那天早上我正準備回家 (一擦, AP也要干通宵么), 看看我的同事們在干什么之后 (二擦, 集體通宵, 這是nP么) 我回到了我的工作臺上, 然后去掉了防護鏡, 穿上外套. 當我走過一個一年級研究生的工作臺時 (再三擦, 一年級就通宵么), 這個小子正在用火焰封核磁管. 我問他做得怎么樣, 他說封的還不錯.

He was sealing off the tube at atmospheric pressure under a flow of nitrogen gas while cooling the tube in a liquid nitrogen bath, a technique neither of us had performed before. Nor, I regret to say, had we looked up the procedure, which we subsequently discovered to be incorrect.

他封核磁管的方法有點奇怪, 在大氣壓下密封, 通了氮氣流同時還把核磁管浸在了液氮里面冷卻. 事后我們討論的結果是該方法有誤.

I stopped by his bench, picked up the tube from the bath, and held it to the light. The tube immediately frosted over, and, as I wiped it to better see the contents, I noticed that the solvent level was exceedingly high. Suddenly the solvent level dropped several inches. Though I instantly realized condensed oxygen had been sealed in the NMR tube, I was quite literally unable to move a muscle before it exploded. Glass fragments shredded my cornea, penetrated the iris, and cause the partial collapse of one eye. My only other injuries were superficial face cuts.

我在他的工作臺上面停下來, 拿起核磁管對燈光看. 核磁管迅速結霜, 我把霜抹掉之后發現樣品量太大. 這時核磁管里面的樣品液面迅速下降. 我意識到核磁管里面有冷凝的氧氣 (液氮能夠冷卻液氧, 液氧在手溫下氣化膨脹了), 但這是我的反應來不及在核磁管爆炸之前把它挪開. 玻璃碎片粉碎 (注意, 是粉碎, 不是簡單的銳利穿刺) 了我的眼角膜, 穿透了視網膜明且導致那只眼球部分被碓爆了. 另外我的臉被割傷了.

My first two weeks at Mass Eye & Ear were spent totally immobilized and with both eyes bandaged. The pain was terrific, but my fear was even greater: I had been warned that when my eyes were uncovered there was a small chance I might blind in both eyes due to "sympathetic ophthalmia." Because eyes are walled off from the rest of the body in utero, eye protein driven into the blood stream can raise an immune response that leads to the "killing" of the uninjured eye. My disappointment at having no functional vision in my injured eye was, needless to say, surpassed by my joy at retaining full vision in my good eye.

在麻省眼耳科醫院里, 最先的兩個星期我完全不能行動而且兩只眼睛都被包扎. 雖然這已經很疼了, 摘除紗布之后潛在的交感性眼炎才是更要命的: 我可能雙眼失明, 盡管是小chance. 因為眼睛是包裹 (wall這個詞兒還能這么用) 在眼腔里的 (in utero), 一只傷眼的組織進入血液之后可能導致免疫反應進而弄瞎另外一只正常的眼睛. 雖然傷眼的視力再也沒有恢復, 但是能夠保持另外一只眼睛的視力已經使我大喜過望了. (大神您又可以去釣魚了么)

The lesson to be learned from my experience is straightforward: there's simply never an adequate excuse for not wearing safety glasses in the laboratory at all times.

結論很明顯: 進實驗室就他媽的給我戴防護鏡!!!!!!

A version of this article appeared in the March 11, 1992 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 36, Number 23).

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