VOA标准英语2010年-Inventive Partnership Extends Millions

Cardiac medicine has made tremendous strides since the 1950s, when surgeons placed the first experimental artificial valves in the human heart. One of the pioneers in that field is Dr. Albert Starr, who co-invented the heart value - which has extended the lives of millions of people. Early startAlbert Starr was just 16 when he enrolled¹ at Columbia University in New York during World War II.
At that time, school offered accelerated programs for young men heading off to war. He finished in two years, and by the time he was 22, had completed medical school.
By then, World War II had ended, but the United States was involved in the Korean War so Starr decided² to become a military doctor. Courtesy Albert StarrAlbert Starr (in helicopter) as a as a young surgeon in Korea"At first, I was a battalion³ surgeon on the front line, getting shot at. And then I was transferred to a mobile army surgical⁴ hospital, a MASH⁵ 8076, and I spent a year there," says Starr. "During that year, I did more than 1000 major operations, just as a young kid. I mean, I was 23 years old."It was a perfect training ground for the future heart surgeon. After leaving the military, Starr moved into the new field of open-heart surgery.
New field"But it was very limited in scope because you couldn't take too long to do these operations. It would injure various vital organs, especially the brain," he says. "So we had to develop a mechanical device to imitate the lungs and the pumping action of the heart, the heart-lung machine, and it was that development that allowed the growth of open-heart surgery." Courtesy Albert StarrPioneering heart surgeon Albert Starr Researchers in Philadelphia developed that machine in the 1950s. It pumped oxygenated blood through the body, giving surgeons enough time to try to correct faulty heart valves, including the mitral valve inside the heart.
"We could put a patient on the heart-lung machine. We could open the left atrium. We could look at the mitral valve. Sometimes we could repair it. If we couldn't repair it, we had no alternative," says Starr. "There was nothing to fall back on, so valvular surgery without an artificial valve - at least as a backup - was a very dangerous game to play."At the University of Oregon Medical School, Starr got a visit one day from an eccentric engineer named Lowell Edwards. An inventor with many patents to his name, Edwards offered hope for a solution. Courtesy Albert StarrAlbert Starr with his co-inventor, Lowell Edwards Inventive partnership"He was a strange character, but I found out he was a great inventor, with a tremendous reputation. He had retired⁶ and had a lot of time on his hands and he wanted to develop an artificial heart."Starr convinced Edwards to narrow his focus and help develop a mechanical replacement⁷ for the heart's mitral valve, which controls blood flow within the heart.
The pair employed the latest space-age materials - Dacron, which was already used in heart grafts⁸, as well as Teflon and a flexible silicone called Silastic. Their device consisted of a ball inside a cage that moved back and forth⁹, in turn allowing the blood to flow inside or blocking it. The physician experimented with dogs and solved successive problems, from suture leaks to blood clots¹⁰. Courtesy Albert StarrAlbert Starr helped develop a mechanical replacement for the heart's mitral valve, which controls blood flow within the heart. Starr says he and Lowell also encountered non-surgical challenges as they moved through uncharted territory.
"We had to design everything, including the ethical¹¹ elements, financial, clinical. We attacked one at a time, so the first thing we had to decide was, when we do our first human implant¹²?"Using heart valve in humansAs the laboratory test dogs survived longer and longer, Starr found himself doing human surgeries sooner than he expected.
"The chief of cardiology visits the animal laboratory and sees all these healthy dogs with mitral valve replacements¹³. And actually one of them sticks his head through the cage and licks his hand. Meanwhile, he's got a hospital full of patients in oxygen tents that need mitral valve replacement, and he said, 'You can't wait on this. We've got patients that need this device.'" Courtesy Albert StarrAlbert Starr with the heart valve he helped design.
Because Starr was operating on patients with terminal heart disease, there were many failures along the way. The first patient to receive a mitral valve implant, a woman in her 30s, died when an air bubble formed inside her heart. By the early 1960s, however, many of Starr's artificial mitral valve patients were successfully resuming their lives.
Today, hundreds of thousands of patients have had this type of implant, either the Starr-Edwards valve design or refinements¹⁴ on that model. Thousands of Starr's former patients send him updates through the social networking Internet site Facebook. Starr no longer does surgery, but is active as a medical consultant¹⁵, researcher and teacher. He looks back on the great strides in cardiac surgery over his six decades of practice - refinements in artificial heart valves, dramatic transplant operations and the widely used procedure of heart bypass surgery - proud to have played a part in developing techniques that have extended so many lives.

1 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 battalion   

n.营；部队；大队(的人)

参考例句：

• The town was garrisoned by a battalion.该镇由一营士兵驻守。
• At the end of the drill parade,the battalion fell out.操练之后，队伍解散了。

4 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

5 mash   

n.麦芽浆，糊状物，土豆泥；v.把…捣成糊状，挑逗，调情

参考例句：

• He beat the potato into a mash before eating it.他把马铃薯捣烂后再吃。
• Whiskey,originating in Scotland,is distilled from a mash of grains.威士忌源于苏格兰，是从一种大麦芽提纯出来的。

6 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

7 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

8 grafts   

移植( graft的名词复数 )； 行贿； 接穗； 行贿得到的利益

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。
• Her burns were treated with skin grafts. 她的烧伤是用植皮方法进行治疗的。

9 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

10 clots   

n.凝块( clot的名词复数 )；血块；蠢人；傻瓜v.凝固( clot的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• When you cut yourself, blood clots and forms a scab. 你割破了，血会凝固、结痂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Milk clots when it turns sour. 奶变酸就凝块。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

11 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

12 implant   

vt.注入，植入，灌输

参考例句：

• A good teacher should implant high ideals in children.好教师应该把高尚理想灌输给孩子们。
• The operation to implant the artificial heart took two hours.人工心脏植入手术花费了两小时。

13 replacements   

n.代替( replacement的名词复数 )；替换的人[物]；替代品；归还

参考例句：

• They infiltrated behind the lines so as to annoy the emery replacements. 他们渗透敌后以便骚扰敌军的调度。 来自辞典例句
• For oil replacements, cheap suddenly looks less of a problem. 对于石油的替代品来说，价格变得无足轻重了。 来自互联网

14 refinements   

n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作

参考例句：

• The new model has electric windows and other refinements. 新型号有电动窗和其他改良装置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It is possible to add a few useful refinements to the basic system. 对基本系统进行一些有益的改良是可能的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。