万物简史 第450期:小生物的世界(21)

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At least 10 percent of young adults, and perhaps 30 percent of teenagers, carry the deadly meningococcal bacterium¹, 至少有10%的年轻人和也许30%的少年携带着致命的脑膜炎球菌，

but it lives quite harmlessly in the throat. 但脑膜炎球菌完全无害地生活在咽喉里。

Just occasionally—in about one young person in a hundred thousand—it gets into the bloodstream and makes them very ill indeed. 在非常偶然的情况下——大约10万个年轻人中间的1个——脑膜炎球菌会进入血液，害得他们生大病。

In the worst cases, death can come in twelve hours. That's shockingly quick. 在最严重的情况下，人可以在12个小时内死亡。速度是极快的。

"You can have a person who's in perfect health at breakfast and dead by evening," says Marsh². “一个人吃早饭时还是好好的，到晚上就死了。”马什说。

We would have much more success with bacteria if we weren't so profligate³ with our best weapon against them: antibiotics⁴. 要是我们不是那样滥用对付细菌的最佳武器：抗生素，我们本来会取得更大的胜利。

Remarkably⁵, by one estimate some 70 percent of the antibiotics used in the developed world are given to farm animals, often routinely in stock feed, 值得注意的是，据一项估计，在发达世界使用的抗生素当中，有大约70%往往经常用于饲料中，

simply to promote growth or as a precaution against infection. 只是为了促进生长或作为对付感染的预防措施。

Such applications give bacteria every opportunity to evolve a resistance to them. 因此，细菌就有了一切机会来产生抗药性。

It is an opportunity that they have enthusiastically seized. 它们劲头十足地抓住这样的机会。

In 1952, penicillin⁶ was fully⁷ effective against all strains of staphylococcus bacteria, 1952年，青霉素用来对付各种葡萄球菌完全有效，

to such an extent that by the early 1960s the U.S. surgeon general, William Stewart, felt confident enough to declare: 以致美国卫生局局长威廉·斯图尔特在20世纪60年代初敢说：

"The time has come to close the book on infectious diseases. “现在是该结束传染病时代的时候了。

We have basically wiped out infection in the United States." 我们美国已经基本上消灭了传染病。”

Even as he spoke⁸, however, some 90 percent of those strains were in the process of developing immunity⁹ to penicillin. 然而，即使在他说这番话的时候，大约有90%的这类病菌已经对青霉素产生抗药性。

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