foreign substance 復習

わたしもなぜかoverlapしてしまいました。

横浜市神奈川区にある大口病院で２０日、入院中の高齢の男性患者が死亡し、死因が中毒死だったことが神奈川県警の調べでわかりました。県警は２３日、何者かが点滴から異物を体内に入れた殺人事件だと断定しました。

Murder probe in progress over death of patient after taking drip

YOKOHAMA--Police opened a murder investigation into the sudden death of a male inpatient at a hospital here.

The death occurred after an intravenous drip had been administered at the Oguchi Hospital in the city's Kanagawa Ward. Police said Sept. 24 that an autopsy turned up a foreign substance in the man's body.

It turned out to be a surface-activating agent that is widely used in detergents and whiteners.

Traces were also found in a medical drip bag to treat Nobuo Yamaki, 88, a resident of the city's Kohoku Ward who had been an inpatient since Sept. 14.

According to police, a nurse administered the drip to Yamaki around 10 p.m. on Sept. 19 to provide him with nutrition. Bleeping monitors alerted nurses to his fading heartbeat around 4 a.m. on Sept. 20. He was pronounced dead at 4:55 a.m.

Soon after that, the nurse noticed that something was wrong with the medical drip. The hospital reported his death to police at 10:43 a.m., saying, “There is a possibility that a foreign substance was mixed into a medical drip for a patient who died.”

Police performed a judicial autopsy on Sept. 21 and concluded two days later that a foreign substance had been injected into the medical drip, causing Yamaki's death by poisoning.

Not all surface-activating agents are poisonous.

Three other elderly inpatients, who like Yamaki were staying on the fourth floor, died one after another since Sept. 18. The men were in their 80s and the woman was in her 90s.

The two men were also on medical drips.

Police are investigating the three inpatients' deaths through autopsies to see whether foreign substances were mixed into their drips or other materials.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201609240035.html

今回取り上げる表現は、“foreign substance”です。“foreign”は「外国の、他国の」などの意味がよく知られていますが、今回の記事では違う意味で用いられています。『ウィズダム英和辞典』(第３版、三省堂)を引いたところ、第３義に「異質な、有害な」とありました。

LDOCEでは、“a piece of dirt, glass, or other material that has got inside something, especially someone’s body, and that should not be there”と定義されていました。この意味で“foreign”を用いる場合、“foreign body/matter/object”という形で用いられることが多いようです。

今回の記事で用いられている“foreign substance”は、LDOCEに載っていた“foreign body/matter/object”と同じ表現だと思われ、意味は「異物」です。(Blue Sky)