文章大意:本文是一篇记叙文。文章主要讲述了Robert Koch在19世纪的工作经历和发现结核杆菌的过程,介绍了肺结核病的历史背景和Robert Koch在医学领域的重要贡献。
In the 19th century, tuberculosis (肺结核) epidemics were spreading over Europe and the United States, killing an estimated one out of seven people. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates called it “the most considerable of the diseases.”
The fight against tuberculosis reached a turning point on March 24, 1882, in a small meeting room of the German Physiological Society at Berlin. A doctor named Robert Koch used more than 200 microscopic preparations to identify the bacterium that causes tuberculosis: tubercle bacillus.
In 1872, Koch took up the post of district physician in what is today Wolsztyn, Poland. His patients, many of them farmers, were dying from anthrax, an illness that destroyed their cows.
Koch set out to solve the anthrax riddle. First, Koch visited anthrax-stricken farms to observe the cows. He witnessed how a healthy animal would die in a matter of days as its blood turned black. People in close contact with sick cows and sheep also fell ill. Examining drops of black blood from dead cows under his microscope, Koch spotted structures shaped like thin grains of rice, which blood from healthy animals did not have. These germs were Bacillus anthracis.
To see if the bacteria were the cause of the illness, Koch designed his own testing methods. First, he soaked (浸泡) a wood splinter (碎片) with a sick animal’s blood; then he made a small cut at the base of each mouse’s tail and inserted (插入) the splinter into their bodies. The next morning, the mice were dead. When Koch checked their bodies, he found the same microscopic structures in their blood.
In 1880, Koch’s team perfected his plate technique (技术) for generating pure cultures of bacteria, which was crucial in identifying the cause of tuberculosis. In 1890, he announced he had found the cure for tuberculosis. He called the medicine tuberculin, a substance taken from tubercle bacilli. The news gave rise to enormous hope around the world, but tuberculin turned out to be a major disappointment. More than ineffective, it even contributed to the death of some patients. To this day, no completely effective vaccine for tuberculosis has been found, but tuberculin has become a crucial part of testing for the disease.
4. Why does the author mention Hippocrates in paragraph 1?
A.To introduce the spread of tuberculosis. |
B.To show the huge impact of tuberculosis. |
C.To explain the concept of tuberculosis. |
D.To describe the history of tuberculosis. |
5. What did the turning point suggest?
A.People found a cure for anthrax. |
B.Fewer people died from tuberculosis. |
C.Tuberculosis-causing bacteria were recognized. |
D.Anthrax stopped spreading beyond animals. |
6. How did Koch identify the cause of anthrax?
A.He fed a mouse with a dead cow’s food. |
B.He inserted a wood splinter into a cow’s tail. |
C.He infected healthy mice with a sick animal’s blood. |
D.He examined a dead person’s blood under his microscope. |
7. What can we learn about the medicine Koch invented?
A.It has cured many people. |
B.It was taken from healthy people. |
C.It was an effective tuberculosis vaccine. |
D.It has been used in testing for tuberculosis. |