Perspectives: Hygiene             

观点:卫生

 How hand-washing explains economic expansion

洗手是如何解释经济扩张的

The history of economic growth is, in many ways, a tale of cleaniness

从很多方面来说，经济增长的历史就是一场关于“清洁”的叙述

Aug 1st 2020 | WASHINGTON, DC

IN THE DECADES after the Industrial Revolution cities choked with dirt. Charles Dickens, the great chronicler of the hardships of early modern life, wrote in “Oliver Twist” of a slum in Bermondsey, in south London, that consisted of “rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter”. It contained, he continued, “every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage”.

在工业革命后的几十年里，城市被尘土所窒息。描写早期现代生活艰辛的伟大编年史家查尔斯·狄更斯(Charles Dickens)在《雾都孤儿》(Oliver Twist)一书中描写了伦敦南部柏蒙德的一个贫民窟，那里的房间“太小、太脏、太封闭，即使与他们所居住的脏乱和肮脏相比，空气也显得太脏了”。他继续说，它包含了“贫穷的每一种令人厌恶的特征；肮脏、腐朽和垃圾的每一种令人呕吐的迹象”。

词汇

Chronicler/记录者；年代史编者

Filthy/肮脏的；污秽的

Tainted/污染的；感染的

Squalor/肮脏；悲惨；卑劣；道德败坏

Repulsive/排斥的；令人厌恶的；

Lineament/容貌；相貌

Loathsome/令人憎恶的；令人呕吐的

 

Today London is a powerhouse. When not besieged by covid-19, its gleaming skyscrapers contain floors of high-income knowledge workers. Its economy accounts for roughly a quarter of British output. Partly thanks to such riches, its residents and those in its commuter belt live longer than those anywhere else in Britain. In Bermondsey the slums have long been replaced with barista coffee shops and art galleries.

今天的伦敦是一个强大的组织。在没有被新冠病毒包围的情况下，它那闪闪发光的摩天大楼里住着高收入的知识工作者。其经济总量约占英国总产出的四分之一。部分归因于这些财富，它的居民和通勤带的居民比英国其他地方的居民活得更久。在柏蒙德塞，贫民窟早已被咖啡师咖啡馆和艺术画廊所取代。

词汇

Besiege/  围困；包围；烦扰

Commuter/通勤者，经常乘公共车辆往返者

Barista/  咖啡师；咖啡吧员

London resembles most other cities in the world—in which people, activity and innovation are increasingly concentrated. Two millennia ago, real incomes across much of the world, such as they were, stood between perhaps $1,000 and $1,500 or so in today’s money. Incomes in advanced economies are now 20 times that or more. High incomes are the consequence of decades of compounding economic growth, a process in which urbanisation has played a fundamental role. By crowding people together cities have long been humanity’s best means of creating large markets and gathering places where people come together to exchange ideas; from the Lyceum of Athens to the startup incubators of Silicon Valley.

伦敦和世界上大多数城市一样，人口、活动和创新越来越集中。两千年前，世界上大部分国家的实际收入，以今天的货币计算，大概在1000美元到1500美元之间。发达经济体的收入现在是这个数字的20倍甚至更多。高收入是几十年来复合经济增长的结果，在这一过程中，城市化发挥了根本作用。通过将人们聚集在一起，城市长期以来一直是人类创造大型市场和人们聚集在一起交流思想的最佳方式;从雅典的学园到硅谷的创业孵化器。

词汇

Incubator/恒温箱，保育箱（婴幼儿）；孵化器（企业）

 

But whenever people have come together to swap goods and ideas, the exchange of germs has inevitably occurred, too. Indeed, for a time the progress of the industrialising world seemed threatened by the kind of filth that Dickens described. In order to unleash the economic power of humankind, a revolution was required in the way that people live and how they interact with others. To become rich people had to learn how to clean up themselves and their cities. The story of economic growth is in large part a tale of the evolution of hygiene.

但当人们聚在一起交换物品和思想时，细菌的“交换”也不可避免地发生了。的确，有一段时间，工业化世界的进步似乎受到了狄更斯所描述的那种污秽的威胁。为了释放人类的经济力量，需要在人们的生活方式和与其他人的交往方式上进行一场革命。要成为富人，人们必须学会如何清洁自己和他们的城市。经济增长的故事在很大程度上是卫生发展的故事。

词汇

Germ/[植] 胚芽；细菌

 

The Roman Empire, which had high levels of urbanisation, was repeatedly ravaged by pandemics. These occasionally threatened to topple the state: including, in the 6th century CE, the first major outbreak of bubonic plague, which killed as many as 30m people. When the plague again roamed across Eurasia eight centuries later, claiming the lives of between 30% and 60% of Europeans, it once more followed traders from city to city. People in the 14th century had no knowledge of the microscopic world around them. Illness was commonly viewed as a matter of bad fortune or divine retribution.

罗马帝国有着高度的城市化，却不断遭受流行病的肆虐。它们偶尔会威胁推翻国家:包括公元6世纪第一次大规模爆发的黑死病，那次鼠疫导致3000万人死亡。8个世纪后，鼠疫再次席卷欧亚大陆，夺去了30%到60%的欧洲人的生命，它再次跟随商人从一个城市到另一个城市。14世纪的人们对他们周围的微观世界一无所知。疾病通常被看作是厄运或神的报应。

词汇

bubonic plague/黑死病（淋巴腺鼠疫）

divine/神圣的；天赐的

retribution/报应；惩罚

Even so, the progression of the bubonic plague from settlement to settlement was obvious enough to make people aware of the threat of contagion. Communities began taking some of the first steps toward preserving public health by closing themselves off to foreigners or otherwise limiting access to their towns. It was this second plague epidemic, which began in 1348 and raged intermittently for five centuries, which gave the world the word quarantine, from the Venetian word quarantena, or “40 days”: the amount of time arriving ships were required to sit in isolation before passengers could come ashore.

尽管如此，黑死病从一个定居点发展到另一个定居点的过程已经足够让人们意识到传染的威胁。社区开始采取一些初步措施，通过将自己与外国人隔离，或以其他方式限制进入自己的城镇，以保持公共卫生。这是第二次瘟疫，开始于1348年，时断时续肆虐了5个世纪，它给世界带来了单词“检疫”，发源于威尼斯单词quarantena，以及“40天”:到达的船只在乘客上岸前被隔离的时间。

词汇

Contagion/传染病

Intermittently/间歇地

Quarantine/检疫隔离期；隔离；检疫

 

 

 

####下面这段话描述的生活有点恶心，做好心理准备####

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Quarantine aside, day-to-day life in the late Middle Ages remained a mucky affair. People ate with unwashed hands from shared plates. They crowded together in close proximity to household refuse and human waste. In homes with earthen floors, residents would often urinate on the ground. Spitting was common; people blew their noses into their hands.

除了隔离之外，中世纪晚期的日常生活仍然是一件肮脏的事情。人们共用盘子，用没洗的手吃饭。他们挤在生活垃圾和人类垃圾附近。在土制地板的家里，居民经常在地上撒尿。随地吐痰是常见的;人们用手擤鼻涕。

词汇

Mucky/脏的，粪的；讨厌的

Urinate/小便

Spit/吐痰；吐出；啐唾沫

 

Habits changed slowly—though improvements were rarely responses to concerns about health or disease. Instead, conducting oneself in a manner intended not to cause offence to others became a mark of refinement, and a means of distinguishing a class from the literally unwashed masses. Norbert Elias, a German sociologist, described the centuries-long accumulation of hygienic habits as the construction of an “invisible wall of affects” which activates “at the mere approach of something that has been in contact with the mouth or hands of someone else”.

习惯的改变是缓慢的——尽管改善很少是对健康或疾病担忧的回应。相反，以一种不冒犯他人的方式行事成为了优雅的标志，也成为了一个阶级与普通大众区别的一种手段。德国社会学家诺伯特•埃利亚斯(Norbert Elias)将几个世纪以来积累的卫生习惯描述为构筑了一堵“无形的情感之墙”，“只要接触到别人的嘴或手”，就会激活它。

词汇

Refinement/改进，改善；有教养

 

Consider the use of forks, which slowly spread across Western Europe during the late Middle Ages. These provided a more hygienic means of moving food to the mouth than fingers. But their power as a status symbol derived more from the dainty, dexterous handling required by the utensil. In the absence of a germ theory, fashion could only take society so far. Giovanni Della Casa, an Italian poet and authority on 16th-century etiquette, discouraged his readers from hand-washing after using the privy, “as the reason for...washing will arouse disagreeable thoughts in people”.

以叉子的使用为例，它在中世纪晚期慢慢传遍了西欧。这提供了一种比用手把食物送到嘴里更卫生的方法。但它们作为一种身份象征的力量，更多地来自于精巧、灵巧的餐具操作。在没有细菌理论的情况下，时尚只能把社会带到这么远的层面。16世纪礼仪方面的权威、意大利诗人乔瓦尼•德拉•卡萨(Giovanni Della Casa)曾劝阻读者在上完厕所后洗手，“因为……洗涤会引起人们不愉快的想法”。

词汇

Dainty/美味的；讲究的

Dexterous/灵巧的；敏捷的；惯用右手的

Utensil/用具，器皿

Etiquette/礼节，礼仪；规矩

Privy/有利害关系的人；厕所（尤指乡间土厕所）