死神來了

05-17

死神來了

來自專欄動物君

中文字：858，建議閱讀時間：1.1分鐘；英文字：458

pretend that we lived in a world where we could see death, as soon as we saw the

skeleton in the black cloak holding a large scythe and a hour glass, slowly

counting down the seconds of a person』s life. Now imagine death standing next

to you how would you feel, the empty eyes watching you and you knowing that

your time is up any second and death is going to take you to the afterlife.

This would a shock to you what would you do, would you call your family to say

you love them, would you try and run away hoping that it might work.

This was a reality for the patients of Steere House Nursing and RehabilitationCentres in the United States, although death wasn』t wearing a black cloak, he wasn』t

holding a scythe or the hour glass, he wasn』t even a skeleton, he was a fluffy

cat. If you were laid in bed and you were sick if you got a visit from Oscar

who would curl up to you for comfort. The nurses and doctors would start to

ring you family as it was your time to go.

Oscar the cat gained fame in 2007, when he appeared in a medical journal 「The New England Journal of Medicine」 by David Dosa, which Oscar could predict the deaths of terminal ill patients, the hypothesis was that Oscar was able to pick up the

lack of movement in patients or that he could small biochemicals released by

dying cells.

In 2005 Oscar was adopted by the hospital with 5 other cats, after a while the nurses noticed that Oscar would appear 2 hours before someone would pass away, the doctor noted he didn』t turn up all the time but he was likely to make an appearance.

After Oscar predicted the deaths of 25 patients, the staff started to take actions and notifying the family members of anyone Oscar started to sleep next to, some people see this as a blessing in disguise as a dying patient could give the family a last

good bye and it wouldn』t come as much as shock, knowing that even if the family

members couldn』t make it to their side Oscar would be keeping them company so they wouldn』t be alone in their final moments.

By 2010 Oscar had predicted around 100 deaths in the hospital and became famous

inspiring many works of art, even the horror legend himself Stephen King wrote

a book called Doctors Door where a hospital patient is stalked by a cat who

predicts deaths. There is still a lot of things we are still learning about

animals and there is animals out there with such amazing abilities that give us

hope for the future in medicine.

如果我們生活的世界裡能夠遇見死亡：只要出現一個身披黑色斗篷的骷顱頭，手持一把大鐮刀，且握著一個倒計時一小時的漏斗，當然這個漏斗就是用來倒數你最後的生命時光。想像如果你置身於上述這樣一個畫面，你會有何感想。空洞的眼睛注視著你，你會明白你已走到生命的盡頭，死神即將奪取你的生命，這時你可能會突然意識到還有一些重要的事沒有來得及做：你是否還來得及給親人打電話，告訴他們你對他們的愛；是否還來得及逃走，擺脫死亡的命運。。。。。。

以上情境對於生活在美國斯蒂爾療養與康復中心的病患來說卻是真實發生的。但略有不同的是，死神並不是穿一件黑色斗篷，也不持有大鐮刀或者玻璃漏斗，當然也不是一具骷顱頭而是一隻毛茸茸的貓。如果你因病來到這個中心，躺在病床上，這時如果那隻貓也就是Oscar走進你，捲成一團的靠著你，那麼醫護工作人員就會給你的家屬打電話，告知他們你的生命所剩無幾。

這隻叫Oscar的貓成名於2007年，關於它的事迹當時被大衛.杜莎公布在《新英格蘭醫學雜誌》上。Oscar能夠預測那些病危者的死期，有一假說是因為貓咪通過觀察患者的運動頻率，或者那隻貓能夠聞出生物體內細胞正在死亡的氣息。

在2005年的時候，Oscar與其他5隻貓被醫院收養。過了一段時間後，護士注意到凡是Oscar在哪個病患身邊呆過，那麼這位患者會在2小時候後死亡，醫生注意到這隻貓並不是一直呆在患者身邊，通常只是露個面。

當Oscar成功預言了25位患者的死期後，凡是那隻貓與之呆過的病患，護士都會通知其家屬。這一現象也被很多人解讀為「因禍得福」。因為通過這隻貓，很多患者都能夠與家人進行最後的告白，不致於得知死訊時太過傷痛與震驚，即使很多家屬並不能成功趕到，但是有了Oscar的陪伴，也讓他們在死前不致於太過孤獨。

截止到2010年，Oscar在醫院已經準確預測了100位患者的死期，變得越來越有名，甚至激發了一些文藝創作，甚至是恐怖小說大師斯蒂芬.金為此還寫了一部小說《睡眠醫師》，原型就是這隻能預測死亡的貓。

通過這個類似靈異事件，我們發現作為人類，還有許多地方值得向動物好好學習，關於這些動物的驚人能力，也讓我們對於未來醫學的發展有了更多的希望。