新概念英语85年上外美音版第四册 第21课

（单词翻译）

　　Lesson 21 Science Makes Sense 知识源于科学
In the early days of the settlement of Australia, enterprising settlers unwisely introduced the European rabbit. This rabbit had no natural enemies in the Antipodes, so that it multiplied with that promiscuous¹ abandon characteristic of rabbits. It overran a whole continent. It caused devastation² by burrowing³ and by devouring⁴ the herbage which might have maintained millions of sheep and cattle. Scientists discovered that this particular variety of rabbit (and apparently⁵ no other animal) was susceptible⁶ to a fatal virus disease, myxomatosis. By infecting animals and letting them loose in the burrows⁷, local epidemics⁸ of this disease could be created. Later it was found that there was a type of mosquito which acted as the carrier of this disease and passed it on to the rabbits. So while the rest of the world was trying to get rid of mosquitoes, Australia was encouraging this one. It effectively spread the disease all over the continent and drastically reduced the rabbit population. lt later became apparent that rabbits were developing a degree of resistance to this disease, so that the rabbit population was unlikely to be completely exterminated⁹. There were hopes, however, that the problem of the rabbit would become manageable.
Ironically, Europe, which had bequeathed the rabbit as a pest to Australia acquired this man-made disease as a pestilence¹⁰. A French physician decided¹¹ to get rid of the wild rabbits on his own estate and introduced myxomatosis. It did not, however, remain within the confines of his estate. It spread through France where wild rabbits are not generally regarded as a pest but as a sport and a useful food supply, and it spread to Britain where wild rabbits are regarded as a pest but where domesticated¹² rabbits, equally susceptible to the disease, are the basis of a profitable fur industry. The question became one of whether Man could control the disease he had invented.