中国科学院大学研究生学术英语读写教程 Unit6 Biology TextA 原文和翻译

中国科学院大学研究生学术英语读写教程

Unit6 Biology TextA 原文和翻译

Coincidental Killers
巧合杀手
Ed Young

1
In the late 17th century, the Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek created a new type of microscope lens and brought an entire world of tiny organisms into focus. Looking at his own dental plaque, he wrote: “I then most always saw with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving.” These little creatures were intriguing but seemingly unimportant, and few others picked up the baton from van Leeuwenhoek. That changed in the 19th century, when Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch proved that some of these microbes were behind important diseases.

17 世纪末，荷兰科学家安东尼·范·列文虎克发明了一种新型显微镜镜头，将整个微生物世界都聚焦在了眼前。他看着自己的牙菌斑，写道：“我当时总是惊奇地发现，牙菌斑里有许多非常小的活微生物，它们活动得非常漂亮。”这些小生物很有趣，但似乎并不重要，很少有人能从范·列文虎克手中接过接力棒。这种情况在 19 世纪发生了改变，路易斯·巴斯德和罗伯特·科赫证明其中一些微生物是导致重大疾病的元凶。

2
That framing has stuck. Microbes are everywhere, but we take their presence on phones, keyboards, and toilet seats as a sign of filth and squalor. They fill our bodies, helping us to digest our food and safeguard our health, but we view them as adversaries to be drugged and conquered.

这种观念根深蒂固。微生物无处不在，但我们却把它们出现在手机、键盘和马桶座上，视为肮脏和肮脏的标志。它们充斥着我们的身体，帮助我们消化食物，保障我们的健康，但我们却把它们视为需要用药物征服的敌人。

3
This antagonism is understandable. Aside from those of us with access to microscopes, most people will never see microbes with their own eyes. And so we tend to identify microbes with the disease-causing minority among them, the little buggers that trigger the tickling mist of a sneeze or the pustule on otherwise smooth skin. We become aware of their existence when they threaten our lives, and for much of our history, that threat was substantial. Epidemics of smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, and plague have traumatised humanity, and the fear of these diseases has contaminated our entire culture, from our religious rites to Hollywood films such as 8 Contagion (2012) or Outbreak (1995).

这种敌意是可以理解的。除了那些能用显微镜观察的人，大多数人永远不会亲眼看到微生物。因此，我们倾向于将微生物与其中的致病少数群体联系起来，这些小虫子会引发打喷嚏时产生的痒痒的雾气，或者在原本光滑的皮肤上长出脓疱。当它们威胁到我们的生命时，我们就会意识到它们的存在，而在我们的大部分历史中，这种威胁是巨大的。天花、霍乱、肺结核和瘟疫的流行给人类带来了创伤，对这些疾病的恐惧已经污染了我们的整个文化，从我们的宗教仪式到好莱坞电影，如《传染病》（2012 年）或《极度恐慌》（1995 年