据美国媒体报道，5月6日在美国马里兰州举行的一场医学年会上，有医生推测英国生物学家达尔文在环球旅行中患上一种疾病，折磨了他数十年，并最终和其它疾病一起导致了他的死亡。

　　达尔文在20多岁的时候进行了长达5年的环球旅行，观察并记录了众多的野生动植物，随后出版了《物种起源》。而他的一生也伴随着多重的健康问题，例如餐后吐酸水、严重的心悸以及头疼。他还曾被诊断出精神分裂症、忧郁症和阑尾炎等。

　　在本次年会上，达尔文的疾病成了讨论的主题。该年会旨在为历史名人的神秘疾病及死亡进行现代医学会诊，曾先后“诊断”过亚历山大大帝、音乐家莫扎特以及美国黑人历史上重要人物布克 华盛顿等。

　　虽然在达尔文生前及去世后医生们曾进行了很多的诊断，但是托马斯 杰弗逊大学医学院教授西德尼 科恩指出，其中的很多诊断都不正确。他在年会上为达尔文确定了三种疾病：周期性呕吐综合征、南美锥虫病以及幽门螺旋菌感染。

　　科恩推断说，早期达尔文患有周期性呕吐综合征，但他的体重和营养仍保持正常，因为他很少呕吐食物，仅仅呕吐胃酸和其它分泌物。

　　然而，正是给达尔文带来进化论灵感并塑造了现代生物学的旅行，使他染上了一种致命的疾病——南美锥虫病。达尔文也曾在诗歌中提到，自己在阿根廷被锥虫叮咬过，而这种虫子可能携带病毒。达尔文在被叮咬后开始发烧，这同南美锥虫病的症状一样。科恩还认为，达尔文患上了经常同南美锥虫病一起出现的幽门螺旋菌感染，导致了胃溃疡。南美锥虫病连同胃肠疾病和心脏病，让达尔文的晚年生活痛苦不堪。

　　原文阅读：

　　Darwin's Travels May Have Led to Illness, Death

　　BALTIMORE -- The very travels that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and shaped modern biology may have led to one of the illnesses that plagued the British naturalist for decades and ultimately led to his death, modern researchers say.

　　Darwin's ailments are the topic of an annual conference in Baltimore on Friday that offers modern medical diagnoses for the mysterious illnesses and deaths of historical figures. In past years, the conference hosted by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Veterans Administration's Maryland Health Care System has looked at Alexander the Great, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Booker T. Washington. Guest speakers include Darwin's great-great-granddaughter, poet Ruth Padel, who penned the book, "Darwin: A Life in Poems."

　　Philip A. Mackowiak, the VA Maryland medical care clinical center chief and UM medical school professor who started the conference in 1995, had Darwin on his running list of possible candidates for years.

　　Darwin, who lived from 1809 to 1882, traveled the world in his 20s cataloging and observing wildlife and later published "On the Origin of Species."

　　Throughout his life, Darwin sought help for multiple health problems, which included vomiting stomach acids after every meal when the symptoms were at their worst. He was diagnosed with dozens of conditions including schizophrenia, appendicitis and lactose intolerance.

　　"It is particularly poignant that the scientists and physicians of his time could not provide Darwin, the father of modern life sciences, with relief from the ailments that affected so much of his life," Mackowiak said.

　　The information used to evaluate Darwin's case came from several sources, Mackowiak said, including the naturalist's own letters, in which he wrote extensively about his complaints and his worries that he had passed on his illnesses to his children.

　　Gastroenterologist Dr. Sidney Cohen, Thomas Jefferson University medical college professor of medicine and research director, assessed Darwin's ailments for the conference and identified three illnesses. Cohen, who had no X-rays or blood studies to use in his assessment, said he had only the documented symptoms: "an analysis of this journey of invalidism that he suffered throughout his life."

　　"It is a symptom-based specialty, though now we have some extraordinary diagnostic tools," he said. "It would have been nice to have some CT scans."

　　Cohen concluded that Darwin suffered from cyclic vomiting syndrome early in his life. His weight and nutrition remained normal since he rarely vomited food, just stomach acid and other secretions.

　　The gastroenterologist also believes Darwin contracted Chagas disease, a parasitic illness that can lie dormant for years, during a five-year trip around the globe on the HMS Beagle in his 20s. The hypothesis has been advanced in the past. That illness would describe the heart disease that beset Darwin later in life and eventually caused his death, Cohen said.

　　He believes Darwin also suffered from Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that cause peptic ulcer disease and often occurs with Chagas.

　　Cohen's research into Darwin's ailments gave him a deeper appreciation for Darwin and the impact of his scientific work, despite his ailments.

　　"It's hard to know how it affected his work," Mackowiak said. "But his productivity never waned."

　　原文链接

　　福克斯新闻网相关报道(国际网络)

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