The Rhesus Factor

In 1939, two American scientists, Philip Levine and Rufus Stetson, reported an unusual case.

A woman had lost a great deal of blood during the delivery and was given a transfusion of her husband’s blood which, like hers, was group O. Despite this apparent compatibility, she suffered a severe reaction. The woman’s blood serum caused red cells from her husband to agglutinate. Her red cells lacked a hitherto unknown antigen. She had developed antibodies after exposure to it from her unborn baby, who had inherited the antigen from its father. When the woman had received her husband’s blood, her antibodies attacked his red cells, causing them to clump together and producing the severe reaction she barely survived.

At the time, Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner was experimenting with blood transfusions from the little Indian Rhesus monkey into rabbits and guinea pigs. He found that the anti-Rhesus antibodies which were produced by the rabbits and guinea pigs not only caused the monkey’s red blood cells to clump together but also those of six out of seven white New Yorkers. Both the monkey and the majority of New Yorkers must, surmised Landsteiner, have an antigen in common, which he called the “Rhesus factor”. Thus the blood of the monkey and of the affected New Yorkers was “Rhesus positive” and the unaffected blood was “Rhesus negative”. Other researchers discovered that anti-Rhesus antibodies could be found in the serum of those who had experienced bad reactions after transfusions with supposedly compatible blood.

Category:      Medicine
Source:      Adapted from: A History of Medicine, published by Simon &  Schuster Ltd, 2000
Words:         250

参考答案

猕因子(the Rhesus factor)

 1939年，两位美国科学家菲利浦（Philip Levine）和鲁弗斯.斯泰森（Rufus Stetson）报告了一起少有的病例。

 某位妇女在分娩过程中失血过多，输了她丈夫的血。与她的血型相似，她丈夫的血型属Ｏ型。尽管他们的血型明显的相亲和，然而这位妇女却产生有严重的反应。该妇女的血清使来自丈夫血液的红血球凝集起来。她的红血球缺少一种迄今仍未知晓的抗原。她由于接触了未出生婴儿从其父亲遗传的抗原而产生了抗体。当这位妇女接受了丈夫的血液之后，她的抗体攻击了他的红血球，导致这些红血球凝集起来，并产生了几乎使她丧命的严重反应。

 当时，奥地利科学家卡尔•兰德斯泰纳（Karl Landsteiner）正在进行输血实验。他把印度小猕猴的血输到兔子和豚鼠身上。他发现，兔子和豚鼠产生的抗猕猴抗体不仅引起猕猴的红血球凝集成块，而且也使得７只白毛种猪（New Yorkers）中的６只出现同样症状。兰德斯泰纳推测，猕猴和大多数白毛种猪一定都有一种共同的抗原，他称之为“猕因子”。因此，猕猴的血和受影响的那些白毛种猪的血呈“猕阳性”（Rhesus positive）, 而未受影响的血则呈“猕阴性”（Rhesus negative）。其他研究人员们发现，从那些被输了被认为是亲和的血液之后有不良反应的人身上，我们是可以找到抗猕猴抗体的。

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At the time, Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner was experimenting with blood transfusions from the little Indian Rhesus monkey into rabbits and guinea pigs. He found that the anti-Rhesus antibodies which were produced by the rabbits and guinea pigs not only caused the monkey’s red blood cells to clump together but also those of six out of seven white New Yorkers

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