盤點由女性發明的10件東西(下)

Square-bottomed Paper Bag

5.方底紙袋

Margaret Knight didn't invent the paper bag, but those first paper bags weren't all that useful for carrying things. They were more like envelopes, so there was no way they'd become the grocery store staple that they are today. For that, we have to thank Knight. Knight realized that paper bags should have a square bottom; when weight was distributed across the base in this way, the bags could carry more things. In 1870, she created a wooden machine that would cut, fold and glue the square bottoms to paper bags. While she was working on an iron prototype of the machine to use for her patent application, she discovered that her design had been stolen by a man named Charles Annan, who had seen her wooden machine a few months earlier. She filed a patent interference suit against Annan, who claimed that there was no way that a woman could have developed such a complex machine. Knight used her notes and sketches to prove otherwise, and she was granted the patent for the device in 1871. That was hardly Knight's first patent, though. At the age of 12, Knight had developed a stop-motion device that would automatically bring industrial machines to a halt if something was caught on them, which prevented many injuries; all told, Knight was awarded more than 20 patents.

紙袋不是瑪格麗特·奈特發明的，而最初用這些紙袋裝東西並不是那麼有用。它們更像信封，所以它們沒有辦法像今天這樣成爲雜貨店的主要商品。爲此，我們必須要感謝奈特。她意識到紙袋應該採用方形底；當重量通過這種方法分散在底部各部分時，紙袋可以攜帶更多的東西。在1870年，她發明了可以爲紙袋剪裁、摺疊和粘合方形底部木頭機器。當她正在製造這樣的一臺鐵製機器用於申請專利時，卻發現一個叫查爾斯·安南的男人盜用了她的設計。安南曾在幾個月前看過她的木頭機器，他宣稱一個女人不可能研製出這麼複雜的機器。於是奈特對安南提出了訴訟，用筆記和草圖證明了自己，最後她在1871年獲得該設備的專利。然而這並不是奈特的第一個專利。在12歲的時候，奈特研製了一個自停裝置。如果一些東西阻礙了工業機器，自停裝置會讓它們自動停止，這預防了很多事故。奈特總共獲得了20多項專利。

washer

4.洗碗機

You might think that the first dishwasher was invented by someone who spent years washing dishes, bemoaning the wasted time and the dishpan hands. Actually, Josephine Cochrane, who received the patent for the first working dishwasher, didn't spend that much time washing dishes. The real impetus for her invention was frustration over her servants breaking her heirloom china after fancy dinners.

你可能會以爲世界上第一個洗碗機是由一個洗了好多年碗的人發明的，他抱怨着洗碗浪費時間，而且還使他的手變得粗糙。事實上，第一個獲得洗碗機專利的約瑟芬·科克倫並沒有在洗碗上花太多時間。她發明洗碗機的真正動力是她的僕人在豐盛的晚餐之後打碎了她的傳家寶瓷盤，她因此而感到非常沮喪。

Cochrane was a socialite who loved to entertain, but after her husband died in 1883, she was left with massive debt. Rather than selling off that beloved china, she focused on building a machine that would wash it properly. Her machine relied upon strong water pressure aimed at a wire rack of dishes, and she received a patent for the device in 1886. Cochrane claimed that inventing the machine was nowhere near as hard as promoting it. At first, the Cochrane dishwasher tanked with individual consumers, as many households lacked the hot water heaters necessary to run it, and those that had the capacity balked at paying for something that housewives did for free. Undaunted, Cochrane sought appointments with large hotels and restaurants, selling them on the fact that the dishwasher could do the job they were paying several dozen employees to do. In time, however, more households acquired the device as greater numbers of women entered the workplace.

科克倫是位社交名媛，喜歡宴請賓客，但是1883年她的丈夫去世，給她留下了大筆債務。她沒有賣掉心愛的瓷器，反而集中精力發明了一臺能夠洗碗的機器。她的洗碗機依靠強大的水壓沖洗金屬架上的碗碟，她因此在1886年獲得了洗碗機的專利。剛開始只有個別消費者使用科克倫洗碗機，因爲很多家庭沒有使之運行的熱水器，而且很多人對花錢買洗碗機猶豫不決，畢竟家庭主婦洗碗可是免費的。科克倫並未放棄，她努力尋求與大型酒店和餐館進行合作，因爲洗碗機可以做幾十個帶薪洗碗工的工作，因此他們很可能會購買洗碗機。然而一段時間之後，很多女性開始參加工作，這使得更多的家庭接受了洗碗機。

shield Wiper

3.雨刮器

At the dawn of the 20th century, Mary Anderson went to New York City for the first time. She saw a much different New York City than the one tourists see today. There were no cabs honking, nor were there thousands of cars vying for position in afternoon traffic. Cars had not yet captured the American imagination and were quite rare when Anderson took that trip, but the woman from Alabama would end up inventing something that has become standard on every automobile. During her trip, Anderson took a tram through the snow-covered city.

在20世紀的一個清晨，瑪麗·安德森第一次來到紐約。她當時看到的紐約和今天遊客所見的大不相同。街道上沒有不停鳴笛的出租車，也不會出現成千上萬的汽車在下午的交通高峯期擁堵不堪的狀況。汽車還沒有引起美國人的重視，還十分稀有。但是這位來自亞拉巴馬的女性最後發明的東西竟然成了汽車的標準配件。她在旅程中乘坐電車穿越了這座白雪覆蓋的城市。

She noticed that the driver had to stop the tram every few minutes to wipe the snow off his front window. At the time, all drivers had to do so; rain and snow were thought to be things drivers had to deal with, even though they resulted in poor visibility. When she returned home, Anderson developed a squeegee on a spindle that was attached to a handle on the inside of the vehicle. When the driver needed to clear the glass, he simply pulled on the handle and the squeegee wiped the precipitation from the windshield. Anderson received the patent for her device in 1903; just 10 years later, thousands of Americans owned a car with her invention.

她注意到電車駕駛員每隔幾分鐘就要停下來掃掉擋風玻璃上的雪。那個時候所有的駕駛員都這麼做；雨雪是司機們不得不處理的東西，即使處理後司機仍然看不清前方。安德森回家以後發明了一個“橡膠清潔刷”，將刷子固定在細長的杆上，並把這根杆系在車輛內部的一個手柄上。需要清掃擋風玻璃時，司機只需要拉動手柄，清潔刷就會掃掉擋風玻璃上積累的雨雪。1903年安德森獲得了雨刮器的專利；僅在10年後，成千上萬的美國人都擁有了一輛配有她的發明的汽車。

atin

2.制黴菌素

Long-distance romantic relationships are often troubled, but Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen proved that long-distance professional relationships can yield productive results. Both Brown and Hazen worked for the New York State Department of Health in the 1940s, but Hazen was stationed in New York City and Brown was in Albany. Despite the miles, Brown and Hazen collaborated on the first successful fungus-fighting drug.

異地戀常常出現問題，但蕾切爾·富勒·布朗和伊麗莎白·李·哈森的故事卻證明了相隔較遠的職業關係可以帶來豐厚的成果。20世紀40年代，布朗和哈森都爲紐約州衛生部工作，但是哈森常年在紐約，布朗卻在奧爾巴尼。儘管隔着數英里，但是布朗和哈森卻在合作，並研製出了第一種抗菌藥物。

In New York City, Hazen would test soil samples to see if any of the organisms within would respond to fungi. If there was activity, Hazen would mail the jar of soil to Brown, who would work to extract the agent in the soil that was causing the reaction. Once Brown had found the active ingredient, it went back in the mail to Hazen, who'd check it against the fungi again. If the organism killed the fungi, it would be evaluated for toxicity. Most of the samples proved too toxic for human use, but finally Brown and Hazen happened upon an effective fungus-killing drug in 1950. They named it Nystatin, after New York state. The medication, now sold under a variety of trade names, cures fungal infections that affect the skin, vagina and intestinal system. It's also been used on trees with Dutch elm disease and on artwork affected by mold.

哈森在紐約測試土壤樣本，檢驗裏面是否有有機體會對真菌做出反應。如果有反應的，哈森將寄一罐這樣的土壤給布朗，布朗則會提取土壤中導致反應的物質。布朗一旦發現了活性成分，就會寄回給哈森，讓他再次進行檢測。如果有機物殺死了真菌,它的毒性將得到評估。大部分樣品毒性太大而不適合人類使用，但最終，布朗和哈森在1950年偶然發現了一種有效的殺菌藥物。他們借用紐約州的名字把它命名爲制黴菌素，這種藥現在有很多商標名稱，用於治療皮膚、陰道和腸道系統的真菌感染。這種藥也被用於治療荷蘭榆樹病和解決藝術品受到黴菌影響的問題。

ar

1.凱夫拉

It was just supposed to be a temporary job. Stephanie Kwolek took a position at DuPont in 1946 so she could save enough money to go to medical school. In 1964, she was still there, researching how to turn polymers into extra strong synthetic fibers. Kwolek was working with polymers that had rod-like molecules that all lined up in one direction.

這只是斯黛芬妮·克勞萊克的一份臨時工作。1946年，斯黛芬妮·克勞萊克在杜邦公司工作，有了這份工作她就可以存下足夠的錢去醫學院上學。1964年，她依然在那裏，研究如何把聚合物變成堅韌的合成纖維。克勞萊研究的聚合物具有棒狀分子，並且排列在一個方向。

Compared to the molecules that formed jumbled bundles, Kwolek thought the uniform lines would make the resulting material stronger, though these polymers were very difficult to dissolve into a solution that could be tested. She finally prepared such a solution with the rod-like molecules, but it looked unlike all the other molecular solutions she'd ever made. Her next step was to run it through the spinneret, a machine that would produce the fibers. However, the spinneret operator almost refused to let Kwolek use the machine, so different was this solution from all the others before; he was convinced it would ruin the spinneret. Kwolek persisted, and after the spinneret had done its work, Kwolek had a fiber that was ounce-for-ounce as strong as steel. This material was dubbed Kevlar, and it's been used to manufacture skis, radial tires and brake pads, suspension bridge cables, helmets, and hiking and camping gear. Most notably, Kevlar is used to make bulletproof vests, so even though Kwolek didn't make it to medical school, she still saved plenty of lives.

與混亂的分子束相比，克勞萊克認爲方向統一會使生成的材料更堅硬，儘管這些聚合物很難溶解成能夠測試的溶液。她最終準備好了這種棒狀分子溶液，但是這個看起來與她得到的其他溶液都不一樣。下一步就是用能夠產生纖維的吐絲器對它進行處理。然而，操作吐絲器的人幾乎拒絕克勞萊克使用這臺機器，因爲這種溶液與之前的相比差別太大，他認爲這樣做會毀掉機器。克勞萊克堅持這樣做，經過這道工序之後，克勞萊克得到了跟鋼一樣堅韌的纖維。這種材料被稱爲凱夫拉，廣泛用於製造滑雪板、子午線輪胎和剎車墊、吊橋纜線、頭盔、遠足和野營裝備。最值得注意的是，凱夫拉被用於製造防彈背心，所以即使克勞萊克沒能去醫學院上學，她還是挽救了很多生命。

審校：敖有沒 來源：前十網