"The Pyramid In The Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

УThe first treatment on schedule was bone replacement. Middle age brings a sort of acromegaly. People ossify, their bones thicken, their gristle turns to bone and their arteries cake and stiffen. My framework needs a polishing down.

УFor weeks I had cut my calcium intake down to almost nothing. Now I brought the calcium level in my blood down below the safe limit. The blood tried to stay normal by dissolving the treated bone. For safety, I had to play with parathyroid shots, depressants, and even a little calcium lactate on an hour-to-hour observation basis, to keep from crossing the spasm level of muscle irritability.

УBut the hullabaloo must have upset my own endocrines, for they started behaving erratically, and yesterday suddenly they threw me into a fit before I could reach the depressant. I didnТt break any bones but I came out of the fit with one of my ulna uncomfortably bent. The sight of it almost gave me another fit.

УWhen oneТs bones start bending it is time to stop. I must have overdone the treatment a bit. There seems to be almost no mineral left in the smaller bones, just stiff healthy gristle. I am now lying flat on the cot drinking milk, eggnogs, and cod liver oil. I dreamed of chop suey last night, but until I ossify properly, I refuse to get up and go out for a meal. The icebox is within easy reach. Maybe my large bones are still hard, and maybe not, but IТll take no chances on bow legs and flat feet just for an oriental dinner.

УDarling, IТm having a wonderful time, and I wish you were here to look over my shoulder and make sarcastic remarks. Every step is a guess based on the wildest deductions, and almost every guess checks and has to be written down as right. At this rate, when I get through IТll be way ahead of the field. IТll be one of the best cockeyed endocrinologists practicing.

УI hope you are having a good time too, and finding hundreds of broken vases and old teeth.

УIТve got to switch back to the notes and hours record now and take down my pulse rate, irritability level, PH and so on. The time is now seven ten, IТll give you another record soon.

УGТby HonЧФ

Her voice stopped and the needle ran onto the label and scratched with a heavy tearing noise. Alec turned the record over. The label on the other side was dated one week later.

Helen said cheerfully:

УHello, Alec. This is a week later. I took a chance today and walked. Flat on my back again now, just a bit winded, but unbowed.

УRemember the time the obelisk fell on me? They set my arm badly, and it healed crooked with a big bump in the bones where the broken ends knitted. That bump made a good test to check the amount of chromosome control in this replacement business. If it approaches true regeneration, the bump should be noticeably reduced, and the knitting truer, to conform better to the gene blueprint of how an arm should be.

УThe minute I thought of that test I had to try it. Risking flattened arches I got up and took the elevator down to the second floor office of Dr. Stanton, and walked right through an anteroom of waiting patients to the consulting room, where I promptly lay down on his examination table.

УHe was inspecting a little boyТs tonsils and said irritably: У СI really must ask you to wait your turnЧ Oh, itТs Dr. Berent. Really Dr. Berent, you shouldnТt take advantage of your professional position toЧ Do you feel faint?Т

У СOh I feel fine,Т I told him charmingly, СI just want to borrow your fluoroscope a minute to look at an old break in the right humerus.Т

У СOh yes, I understand,Т he says blinking. СBut why are you lying down?Т

УWell, Alec, you remember how that young man isЧrather innocent, and trying to be dignified and stuffy to make up for it. The last time we spoke to him, and you made those wonderful cracks, I could see him thinking that we were somewhat odd, if not completely off our rockers. If I tried to tell him now that I was afraid my legs would bend, he would have called for a padded wagon to come and take me away.

УI said, СI am afraid that I have upset my parathyroids. They are on a rampage. Just a momentary condition, but I have to stay relaxed for a while. You should see my irritability index! A little higher andЕ ahЕ I feel rather twitchy. Do you happen to have any curare around?Т

УHe looked at me as if I had just stabbed him with a hatpin, and then pulled out the fluoroscope so fast it almost ran over him, screened my arm bones and hustled me out of there before I could even say aha. Apparently the idea of my throwing a fit right there didnТt arouse his professional ardor one bit.

УAlec, when I saw those bone shadows it was as much as I could do to keep from frightening the poor boy with war whoops. I put both arms under together, and I couldnТt see any bumps at all. They were exactly the same.

УThis means that cells retain wider gene blueprints than they need. And they just need a little encouragement to rebuild injuries according to specifications. Regeneration must be an unused potential of the body. I donТt see why. We canТt evolve unused abilities. Natural selection only works in life and death trialsЧprobably evolution had no part in this. It is just a lucky break from being fetal apes, a hang-over bit of arrested development.

УI wonder how wide a blueprint each cell retains. Can a hand sprout new fingers, a wrist a new hand, a shoulder a new arm? Where does the control stop?

УThe problem is a natural for the data I am getting now. Next winter when I am through with this silly rejuvenation business IТll get down to some solid work on regeneration, and try sprouting new arms on amputees. Maybe we can pry a grant from the Government, through that military bureau for he design of artificial limbs. After all, new legs would be the artificial limb to end all artificial limbs.

УBut that is all for next year. Right now all I can use it for is to speed up replacement. If I can kid my cells into moving up onto embryo level activityЧthey would regrow fast enough to keep the inside works ticking after a really stiff jolt of the bottled dissolution. IТd have to follow it fast with the liquid proteinЧ No, if they regrew that fast they would be using the material from the dissolved old cells. I could telescope treatment down to a few hours. And the nucleus control so active that it rebuilds according to its ideal.

УDemolition and Reconstruction going on simultaneously. Business as Usual.