ECONOMIST: How malaria has shaped humanity
經濟學人：瘧疾是如何塑造人類的
The parasite shows how history is partly created by non-human forces
寄生蟲展示了歷史是如何部分由非人類力量創造的
Two centuries ago, at Anna Pépin’s house on Gorée Island, off the coast of Senegal, ladies with fashionably pointed hats sashayed up the stairs to sip fine wines in an airy salon with a stupendous view of the Atlantic. Under the staircase was a windowless punishment cell for recalcitrant slaves. Young, fertile women were separated from the other slaves, for reasons as obvious as they are odious.
兩個世紀前，在塞內加爾海岸戈雷島上安娜·佩平的家中，戴著時髦尖帽的女士們信步走上樓梯，在一個能看到大西洋美景的通風沙龍裡品嘗美酒。樓梯下面是一個沒有窗戶的懲罰室，用來懲罰拒不服從的奴隸。年輕、有生育能力的婦女與其他奴隸分開，原因顯而易見，但也令人憎惡。
Pépin, an Afro-French trafficker, must have heard her captives rattling their shackles as she shared canapés with her guests. If she looked down from her balcony, she must have seen them being pushed through a narrow opening—the 「door of no return」—and loaded onto ships bound for the Americas.
佩潘是一名非洲裔法國人販子，當她和她的客人們分享小吃時，她一定聽到了她的俘虜們咔嗒咔嗒地戴著鐐銬。如果她從陽臺往下看，她一定看到他們被推過一個狹窄的開口——「不歸門」——並被裝上開往美洲的船隻。
History is partly shaped by human choices. An evil institution cannot exist without evildoers. But history is also shaped by non-human forces. Why did plantation owners in the New World specifically want African slaves, rather than, say, Native Americans? One reason is malaria, notes Eloi Coly, the curator of the museum of slavery that Pépin’s house has become.
歷史部分是由人類的選擇塑造的。一個邪惡的機構離不開邪惡的人。但是歷史也是非人類力量塑造的。為什麼新大陸的種植園主特別想要非洲奴隸，而不是，比如說，美洲土著？一個原因是瘧疾，佩平的房子變成了奴隸制博物館，博物館館長埃洛伊·科利指出。
Malaria was introduced to the Americas as part of the 16th-century Columbian exchange. Parasites crossed the ocean in the blood of slaves and settlers. Local Anopheles mosquitoes spread them. Soon, natives and Europeans were dying in huge numbers. But Africans tended to survive, even when forced to work in mosquito-infested sugar plantations, because of an inherited resistance to malaria. Planters in the West Indies would pay three times more for an African than for an indentured European, notes Sonia Shah in 「The Fever」. The mosquito, which also transmits other diseases, 「has played a greater role in shaping our story than any other animal,」 writes Timothy Winegard in 「The Mosquito」.
瘧疾作為16世紀哥倫布交換的一部分被引入美洲。寄生蟲以奴隸和定居者的血液穿越海洋。當地的瘧蚊蚊子傳播它們。很快，當地人和歐洲人大量死亡。但是非洲人傾向於生存，即使被迫在蚊子滋生的甘蔗種植園工作，因為他們對瘧疾有遺傳抗性。索尼婭·沙阿在《狂熱》中寫道，西印度群島的種植園主為一個非洲人支付的價格是一個歐洲契約人的三倍。蚊子也傳播其他疾病，「在塑造我們的故事方面，蚊子比任何其他動物都發揮了更大的作用，」蒂莫西·懷恩加德在《蚊子》中寫道。
Stand again on Gorée Island and look in a different direction. Look past the children cooling in the surf, and the masked shopkeepers waiting for the covid-deterred tourists to come back. Stare towards the African mainland. Today the view is of skyscrapers and container ships—Dakar, Senegal’s capital, is a thriving port. Back in 1805, when Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer, looked across this same narrow strait, he would have seen a small settlement and a vast expanse of forest. He spent a few weeks on Gorée before setting off for the continent’s interior. It is not known whether he met Pépin, who would have been around 18 at the time.
再次站在戈雷島上，朝不同的方向看。看過去，孩子們在海浪中乘涼，蒙麵店主在等著被制服的遊客回來。凝視著非洲大陸。今天的景色是摩天大樓和貨櫃船——塞內加爾首都達喀爾是一個繁榮的港口。回到1805年，當蘇格蘭探險家芒戈公園(Mungo Park)放眼望去，穿過同樣狹窄的海峽，他會看到一個小定居點和一片廣闊的森林。他在戈雷呆了幾個星期，然後出發去歐洲大陸的內陸。不知道他是否遇到了當時18歲左右的佩潘。
He trekked inland, with tons of baggage loaded on donkeys, and then down the Niger River. Of the 40-odd men on his expedition, all but one died, many of fever. Park himself avoided death by malaria by leaping out of a canoe to escape a hail of arrows and drowning in rapids in what is now Nigeria.
他背著裝在驢上的成噸的行李向內陸跋涉，然後順尼日河而下。在他探險的40多個人中，除了一個人以外，其他人都死了，許多人死於發燒。Park從獨木舟上跳下來，躲過了一陣箭雨，並在如今的奈及利亞的急流中溺死，從而避免了瘧疾的死亡。
Park’s troubles illustrate a crucial fact about colonial history. Africa was—and remains—the continent where malaria is most virulent. European settlers tended to die of it. So they settled in large numbers only in the least malarial places: South Africa, with its cold winter nights that kill mosquitoes; the highlands of Kenya and Zimbabwe; and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. In parts of west Africa, by contrast, settlers had a 50-50 chance of dying each year.
Park的困境說明了殖民歷史的一個關鍵事實。非洲過去是——現在仍然是——瘧疾最致命的大陸。歐洲移民傾向於死於此。因此，他們大量定居在瘧疾最少的地方:南非，寒冷的冬夜殺死蚊子；肯亞和辛巴威的高地；和北非的地中海沿岸。相比之下，在西非的部分地區，定居者每年有50-50%的死亡機會。
In the highly malarial parts of Africa, imperialists ruled indirectly, through local potentates, who were persuaded with threats and bribes to throw in their lot with the French or British empires. In non-malarial zones Europeans settled en masse, creating institutions, many of which last to this day, along with racial injustices that caused centuries of grievances. Malaria helps explain why modern South Africa, with 4.7m white citizens, is so different from Nigeria, which has only a handful of white expatriates. South Africa gave the world a universally recognisable euphemism for white supremacy. A quarter-century after apartheid ended, its scars still linger. Nigerian politics has different faultlines: Muslim versus Christian, and so on.
在非洲瘧疾肆虐的地區，帝國主義者通過當地的統治者進行間接統治，他們被威脅和賄賂所說服，與法國或英國帝國共命運。在非瘧疾區，歐洲人集體定居，創建了許多延續至今的機構，伴隨著種族不公正，引發了數百年的不滿。瘧疾有助於解釋為什麼擁有470萬白人公民的現代南非與只有少數白人僑民的奈及利亞如此不同。南非給了世界一個公認的白人至上的委婉說法。種族隔離制度結束四分之一世紀後，它的傷疤依然存在。奈及利亞政治有不同的斷層線:穆斯林對基督教，等等。
Malaria has shaped other continents, too. It was once widespread in Europe. One reason why ancient Rome was so hard to conquer was that it was protected by the Pontine marshes. The Romans thought the fevers people caught there were caused by noxious fumes. Hence the name mal』aria, from 「bad air」.
瘧疾也塑造了其他大陸。它曾在歐洲廣泛傳播。古羅馬如此難以徵服的一個原因是它受到龐丁沼澤的保護。羅馬人認為人們在那裡感染的發燒是由有毒氣體引起的。因此得名mal'aria，來自「壞空氣」。
In 218bc Hannibal crossed the Alps. He routed the Romans at the Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae, but full conquest eluded him because of malaria, which cost the Carthaginian general his right eye, his wife, his son and much of his army. Later invasions by assorted barbarians met a similar doom. 「The world still lives among the mosquito-haunted shadows of the Roman Empire,」 notes Mr Winegard—many countries speak a Latin-based language, while several political systems have adapted Roman law. Indeed 「the Roman Empire first martyred and then eased the passage of Christianity across Europe」.
218年公元前漢尼拔翻越阿爾卑斯山。他在特雷比阿、特拉西梅內和坎內打敗了羅馬人，但由於瘧疾，他未能完全徵服，這使迦太基將軍失去了右眼、妻子、兒子和大部分軍隊。後來各種野蠻人的入侵也遭遇了類似的厄運。「世界仍然生活在羅馬帝國被蚊子困擾的陰影中，」懷恩加德先生指出——許多國家使用拉丁語，而一些政治體系已經適應了羅馬法。事實上，「羅馬帝國首先殉教，然後緩和了基督教在歐洲的傳播」。
Malaria shielded Rome for centuries. But nature does not stand still. Some time around the fifth century, a new breed of mosquito brought a new and deadlier parasite to Rome: Plasmodium falciparum, the malarial strain that blights Africa today. Unlike P. vivax, to which the Romans were inured, P. falciparum could have demoralised and destabilised an empire that was already under barbarian siege, speculates Ms Shah. The theory that it contributed to Rome’s decline and fall, as well as its rise, is unproven, but plausible.
瘧疾保護了羅馬幾個世紀。但是大自然不會靜止不動。大約在五世紀的某個時候，一種新的蚊子給羅馬帶來了一種新的更致命的寄生蟲:惡性瘧原蟲今天困擾非洲的瘧疾。不像P.瘧原蟲（指引起瘧疾的單細胞動物）羅馬人已經習慣了，P.惡性瘧原蟲沙阿推測，這可能會使一個已經被野蠻人圍攻的帝國士氣低落，動蕩不安。認為它導致了羅馬的衰落和崛起的理論是未經證實的，但似乎是可信的。
Parasites and people寄生蟲和人A millennium later, malaria buffeted and then empowered another Roman institution: the Catholic church. Five popes probably died of it between 1492 and 1623. After it killed Pope Gregory XV, cardinals came to Rome to choose his successor. Six died of malaria. Eventually, the ailing head of one faction, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, was so desperate to go home that he backed a compromise candidate just to end the conclave. Thus, a mosquito helped elect Pope Urban VIII, as Fiammetta Rocco, an Economist writer, describes in 「The Miraculous Fever-Tree」.
一千年後，瘧疾襲擊了另一個羅馬機構:天主教。五位教皇可能在1492年至1623年間死於此病。它殺死教皇格裡高利十五世後，樞機主教們來到羅馬選擇他的繼承人。六人死於瘧疾。最終，一個派系的領導人，紅衣主教西皮奧內·貝佳斯，病入膏肓，不顧一切地想回家，他支持一個妥協的候選人來結束秘密會議。因此，一隻蚊子幫助教皇烏爾班八世當選為教皇經濟學家作家，在《神奇的發熱樹》中描述。
Then, around 1630, Jesuit missionaries found a cure. In the mountains of Peru, they noticed that natives ingested the powdered bark of the cinchona tree when they were shivering with cold. They wondered if it might also treat malarial shivers. It did. The active ingredient was quinine. Soon it was known that the Jesuits could treat malaria—for a price. They jealously guarded their secret, and parlayed it into influence by healing kings and lords whose favour they desired.
然後，在1630年左右，耶穌會傳教士找到了治癒方法。在秘魯的山區，他們注意到當地人在冷得發抖的時候會吃金雞納樹的樹皮粉末。他們想知道它是否也能治療瘧疾引起的寒戰。確實如此。活性成分是奎寧。很快就知道耶穌會士可以治療瘧疾——但要付出代價。他們小心翼翼地保守著自己的秘密，並通過治癒他們所渴望的國王和貴族的恩寵來利用這一秘密施加影響。
In Britain, malaria may have ended a Protestant dictatorship. Oliver Cromwell, the man who had King Charles I beheaded, ruled as Lord Protector from 1653-1658. His puritanical decrees sucked the joy out of life as surely as mosquitoes suck blood. He closed theatres and banned make-up and Christmas decorations. He hated Catholics, which may be why he angrily refused an offer of 「Jesuits』 powder」 to cure his malaria. The fever killed him, and merriment was re-legalised.
在英國，瘧疾可能結束了新教的獨裁統治。奧利弗·克倫威爾，曾被查理一世斬首，從1653年至1658年擔任護國公。他的清教法令從生活中吸取快樂，就像蚊子吸血一樣。他關閉了劇院，禁止化妝和聖誕節裝飾。他討厭天主教徒，這可能是他憤怒地拒絕「耶穌會士粉」治療瘧疾的原因。發燒奪去了他的生命，歡樂再次合法化。
For centuries, there was never enough cinchona bark. Gradually, however, technology improved. In 1820 French chemists discovered how to extract quinine from cinchona. In 1865 a native braved execution to slip Bolivian cinchona seeds to a British trader. The Dutch government got hold of them and, after 30 years, figured out how to grow them in what is now Indonesia. By 1900 the Dutch were producing more than 5,000 tonnes of quinine a year.
幾個世紀以來，金雞納樹皮一直不夠用。然而，技術逐漸進步了。1820年，法國化學家發現了如何從金雞納中提取奎寧。1865年，一名當地人冒著被處決的危險，將玻利維亞金雞納種子偷偷交給一名英國商人。荷蘭政府得到了它們，30年後，找到了如何在現在的印度尼西亞種植它們的方法。到1900年，荷蘭人每年生產5000多噸奎寧。
When the second world war broke out, the Germans invaded the Netherlands and seized the Dutch stockpiles of quinine. The Japanese invaded Indonesia and seized the cinchona plantations. Suddenly the Axis powers had 95% of the world’s quinine. This gave them a huge military advantage. Japanese forces occupied China, their much larger, mosquito-ridden neighbour, armed with malaria pills. (They also hired old ladies to tuck in sleeping soldiers』 bednets.) Allied troops had far less protection. Malaria afflicted 60% of them in South-East Asia. On the island of Bataan, 85% of American and Filipino troops were malaria-struck when they surrendered to the Japanese. It was the largest surrender to a foreign power in American history. The New York Times noted that the battle was lost not for want of bullets, 「but because the quinine tablets gave out」.
第二次世界大戰爆發時，德國人入侵荷蘭，奪取了荷蘭儲備的奎寧。日本人入侵印度尼西亞，奪取了金雞納種植園。突然間軸心國擁有了世界上95%的奎寧。這給了他們巨大的軍事優勢。日本軍隊佔領了中國，他們更大的，蚊子肆虐的鄰居，裝備了瘧疾藥丸。(他們還僱了老太太給睡著的士兵塞蚊帳。)盟軍的防護力遠不如。東南亞60%的人患有瘧疾。在巴丹島，85%的美國和菲律賓軍隊在向日本投降時都感染了瘧疾。這是美國歷史上對外國勢力最大的投降。這紐約時報他指出，這場戰鬥的失敗不是因為缺少子彈，「而是因為奎寧片用完了」。
Wartime demand spurred a race to invent a good substitute. German scientists got there first, with chloroquine. After the war, chloroquine was so widely used that parasites grew resistant to it. The race between science and evolution continues today.
戰時的需求促使人們競相發明一種好的替代品。德國科學家首先到達那裡，用的是氯喹。戰後，氯喹被廣泛使用，寄生蟲對它產生了抗藥性。科學和進化之間的競賽今天仍在繼續。
The post-war period saw a big push to exterminate the Anopheles mosquito itself, by spraying its habitat with ddt, an insecticide so effective that America’s Centres for Disease Control called it 「the atomic bomb of the insect world」. Prolific spraying caused mosquito populations to crash. By 1951 malaria had vanished from the United States. By 1964 the number of cases in India had fallen from 75m a year to fewer than 100,000.
戰後時期目睹了滅絕種族的巨大推動力瘧蚊蚊子本身，向它的棲息地噴灑二氯二苯三氯乙烷一種如此有效的殺蟲劑，以至於美國疾病控制中心稱其為「昆蟲世界的原子彈」。大量噴灑導致蚊子數量銳減。到1951年，瘧疾已經從美國消失了。到1964年，印度的病例數量已經從每年7500萬下降到不到10萬。
But ddt also had side-effects. It persisted in the environment, and moved up the food chain. In America ddt was found in milk, after cows munched insecticide-laced grass. And mosquitoes evolved that could resist the chemical. In 1962 Rachel Carson published 「Silent Spring」, a book on the dangers of using pesticides without understanding their long-term effects. It led to a ban on ddtand helped kick-start the modern environmental movement.
但是二氯二苯三氯乙烷也有副作用。它在環境中持續存在，並向食物鏈的上遊移動。在美國二氯二苯三氯乙烷是在牛奶中發現的，在奶牛咀嚼含有殺蟲劑的草之後。蚊子進化出了抵抗這種化學物質的能力。1962年，雷切爾·卡森出版了《寂靜的春天》，這本書講述了在不了解殺蟲劑長期影響的情況下使用殺蟲劑的危險。這導致了一項禁令二氯二苯三氯乙烷並幫助啟動了現代環境運動。
It is intriguing to speculate how the world might look, had malaria never existed. If Hannibal had conquered Rome, would Europeans today speak languages derived from Punic instead of Latin? If the transatlantic slave trade had not been so lucrative, would America have avoided civil war and segregation? If the quinine-fortified Japanese army had not battered the Chinese nationalists so badly, would Mao Zedong’s communists have been able to seize power?
如果瘧疾從未存在過，推測世界會是什麼樣子是很有趣的。如果漢尼拔徵服了羅馬，今天的歐洲人會說源於布匿語的語言而不是拉丁語嗎？如果跨大西洋奴隸貿易不是如此有利可圖，美國會避免內戰和種族隔離嗎？如果奎寧設防的日本軍隊沒有如此嚴重地打擊中國民族主義者，毛澤東的共產主義者能夠奪取政權嗎？
Such questions are unanswerable. But humankind may one day discover what a world without malaria is like. The annual global death toll has roughly halved since 2000, to around 400,000. Rich countries have eliminated the disease: by draining swamps, spraying insecticide and sleeping in air-conditioned rooms.
這樣的問題是無法回答的。但是人類也許有一天會發現沒有瘧疾的世界是什麼樣的。自2000年以來，全球每年的死亡人數大約減少了一半，達到40萬人左右。富裕國家已經消滅了這種疾病:通過排乾沼澤、噴灑殺蟲劑和睡在空調房裡。
In Africa malaria still kills multitudes of children and sickens adults, making it harder for them to work and obstructing the continent’s path to prosperity. Yet it can be beaten. Senegal has all but conquered the disease in some regions and hopes to wipe it out nationwide by 2030. Despite the disruption of covid-19, that is feasible, thanks to a combination of bednets, pills and genomic technology.
在非洲，瘧疾仍然導致大量兒童死亡和成人患病，使他們更難工作，並阻礙了非洲大陸的繁榮。然而它可以被打敗。塞內加爾幾乎徵服了一些地區的疾病，並希望到2030年在全國範圍內消滅它。儘管新冠肺炎遭到破壞，但這是可行的，這要歸功於蚊帳、藥丸和基因技術的結合。
A short drive from Dakar, in a district called Madina Fall, wide puddles fester on an unpaved road. Malaria has ravaged the area for thousands of years, but now it has all but gone. 「My older brother died of it. My younger sister died of it. I nearly died of it, too,」 says Bada Niang, a local worthy. 「Now, we have bednets, and it practically doesn’t exist here any more.」
從達卡爾開車不遠，在一個叫麥迪娜法爾的地區，一條未鋪路面的路上布滿了寬闊的水坑。瘧疾在這個地區肆虐了幾千年，但現在它幾乎已經消失了。「我哥哥死於此。我妹妹死於此。我也差點死於此，」當地的一位名人八達娘說。「現在，我們有了蚊帳，它實際上已經不存在了。」
本文章英文原文來自經濟學人，不代表公眾號立場
英文文章及圖片來源：
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/19/how-malaria-has-shaped-humanity
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