万物简史 第344期:孤独的行星(9)

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　　and that if he had been born in the Soviet³ Union he would have been a passionate⁴ monarchist. 要是他生在苏联，他可能会变成一名狂热的拥护君主制度者。

　　At all events, most of his articles first appeared in the Communist Daily Worker. 无论如何，他的大部分文章最初是刊登在由共产党人主办的《工人日报》上的。

　　Whereas his father's principal interests concerned miners and poisoning, 他父亲主要对矿工和中毒问题感兴趣，

　　the younger Haldane became obsessed⁵ with saving submariners and divers⁶ from the unpleasant consequences of their work. 小霍尔丹则潜心研究潜艇乘员和潜水员的职业病的预防措施。

　　With Admiralty funding he acquired a decompression chamber⁷ that he called the "pressure pot." 在海军部的资助下，他获得了一个他称之为“高压锅”的减压室。

　　This was a metal cylinder⁸ into which three people at a time could be sealed and subjected to tests of various types, all painful and nearly all dangerous. 那是一个金属圆筒，一次可以同时把三个人密封在里面，进行各种痛苦而又危险的测试。

　　Volunteers might be required to sit in ice water while breathing "aberrant⁹ atmosphere" or subjected to rapid changes of pressurization. 志愿者被要求坐在冰火里，同时呼吸“异常气体”或经受快速的压力变化。

　　In one experiment, Haldane simulated a dangerously hasty ascent¹⁰ to see what would happen. 在一次实验中，霍尔丹亲自模仿快速上升的危险动作，看看会有什么事。

　　What happened was that the dental fillings in his teeth exploded. 结果，他补牙的填料炸掉了。

　　"Almost every experiment," Norton writes, "ended with someone having a seizure¹¹, bleeding, or vomiting¹²." “几乎每一次试验，”诺顿写道，“都以有人痉挛、流血或呕吐告终。”

　　The chamber was virtually soundproof, 减压室是隔音的，

　　so the only way for occupants to signal unhappiness or distress¹³ was to tap insistently¹⁴ on the chamber wall or to hold up notes to a small window. 要是里面的人要想表示自己不舒服或很痛苦，他们非得不停的敲击减压室的墙壁，或在小窗口举起字条。

　　On another occasion, while poisoning himself with elevated levels of oxygen, Haldane had a fit so severe that he crushed several vertebrae. 还有一次，霍尔丹吸入不断加大浓度的氧气，结果痉挛得厉害，摔断了几根椎骨。

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