评论
打印
The "Spanish" flu pandemic was the single worst disease episode in modern world history.
“西班牙”大流感是现代世界历史上最严重的一种疾病。
In the space of eighteen months in 1918-1919, its four epidemic waves killed tens of millions of people around the globe, ravaging a population that had already been exhausted by the mass killing tactics of the War to End All Wars.
在1918年至1919年的18个月的时间里，它的四次流行病浪潮夺去了全球数千万人的生命，蹂躏着已经被“结束所有战争”的大规模杀戮战术搞得精疲力竭的人口。
In today's video we will look at the Spanish flu from three perspectives:
在今天的视频中，我们将从三个角度来分析西班牙流感：
first, how did it spread across the world and what was its impact on the every day lives of ordinary individuals;
首先，它是如何在世界各地传播的，它对普通人的日常生活有什么影响；
then, we will profile this invisible killer, seeking to understand its origins and murderous methods;
其次，我们将剖析这个隐形杀手，了解它的起源和杀人方法；
finally, we will assess the death toll it inflicted on the human species and see what can we learn from the experience.
最后，我们将评估它对人类造成的死亡人数，看看我们能从经验中学到什么。
And with that, let's get into it.
就此，咱们开始吧。
The term 'Spanish' is of course a misnomer, it would be more appropriate to call it 'The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919', so I will use both terms.
当然了，用“西班牙”这个词是不准确的，更合适的说法应该是“1918-1919年大流感”，所以我会同时使用这两个词。
This epidemic did not originate in Spain, it received this honorary citizenship only because Spain was a neutral country in WWI and its press was free from censorship to report first about this mysterious disease.
这一流行病并非起源于西班牙，它获得这一荣誉公民身份只是因为西班牙在一战中是一个中立国，它的媒体不受审查制度的限制，可以首先报道这一神秘的疾病。
The origins of the pandemic lay elsewhere.
而这一流行病的起源在另一个地方。
Most contemporary accounts place the first outbreak at a US Army training base, Camp Funston, in Kansas, in mid-March 1918.
大多数当代的报道认为，这一流行病于1918年3月中旬第一次爆发，地点在堪萨斯州的美国陆军训练基地芬斯顿营。
It is here that this flu virus reaped its first 48 victims.
正是在这里，该病毒第一次感染了48人。
But we will never know for certain if that was the true starting point.
不过我们永远无法确定这里是否是该病毒真正的起点。
The Online Archive of California holds in their Spanish Flu section a letter written by a young recruit, Roy, from Camp Logan, Texas.
加州在线档案馆的西班牙流感栏目里有一封来自德克萨斯州洛根营的年轻新兵罗伊写的信。
On the 1st of March 1918 he laments: "We played another funeral today, one of the lads from Company 1 died, I knew him real well."
1918年3月1日，他悲叹道：“我们今天举行了另一场葬礼，第一连的一个小伙子去世了，我和他关系很好。”
'Another' funeral on the 1st of March? It seems like young soldiers had been dying throughout February then.
‘另一场’葬礼在3月1日举行？整个二月，年轻的士兵似乎都在死去。
But the origins of the great flu can be traced back even earlier than 1918.
不过此次流感的起源可以追溯到1918年之前。
As early as 1916 and 1917 army camps in étaples, France and Aldershot, England had been ravaged by an unknown respiratory disease.
早在1916年和1917年，法国étaples和英国奥尔德肖特的军营就被一种未知的呼吸系统疾病所破坏。
At the time it had been described as 'purulent bronchitis', but its symptoms resembled those of the Spanish flu.
当时它被描述为“化脓性支气管炎”，但其症状与西班牙流感相似。
However, these outbreaks did not spread beyond the two military bases and had died down by April 1917.
然而，当时的疫情并没有扩散到这两个军事基地以外，直到1917年4月才平息下来。
Historian Mark Humphries of Canada's Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2014 proposed another origin story.
加拿大纽芬兰纪念大学的历史学家马克·汉弗莱斯于2014年提出了关于病毒起源的另一个版本。
Humphries found archival evidence that a respiratory illness that struck northern China in November 1917 was identified a year later by Chinese health officials as identical to the Spanish flu.
汉弗莱斯发现的档案证据表明，1917年11月袭击中国北方的一种呼吸系统疾病在一年后被中国卫生官员鉴定为与西班牙流感相同。
From China, British officials organised the transport of 94,000 labourers to the Western Front, via North America, as part of an auxiliary corps in charge of digging trenches and maintaining supply lines.
英国官员从中国组织了94000名劳工经由北美前往西线，作为一支负责挖掘战壕和维护补给线的辅助部队的一部分。
The labourers were sailed to Vancouver on the Canadian West Coast, then loaded onto trains to Halifax on the East Coast, from which they could be sent to Europe.
这些劳工被船运到加拿大西海岸的温哥华，然后被装上火车运往东海岸的哈利法克斯，从那里他们可以被送往欧洲。
The press was forbidden from reporting on these transports and the trains had been sealed: both were meant as a precaution, to protect the labourers from widespread anti-Chinese sentiment.
媒体被禁止报道这些行程，列车也被封锁：这两种措施都是为了预防，保护工人不受浓重的反华情绪的影响。
But the un-intended effect may have been to further contagion amongst the auxiliary's ranks.
但意想不到的结果是，病毒在辅警队伍中进一步传染。
Some 3,000 of them, while travelling through Canada, were quarantined with flu-like symptoms.
其中约3000人在加拿大旅行时因出现流感样症状而被隔离。
And of course, newspapers could not publish a single word about it, meaning the infected trains could continue their eastwards run.
当然，报纸不能发表任何关于这件事的消息，这意味着受感染的火车可以继续向东行驶。
The Chinese laborers arrived in southern England by January 1918 and were sent to France, where a Hospital at Noyelles-sur-Mer recorded hundreds of their deaths from respiratory illness.
1918年1月，这些华工抵达英格兰南部，然后被送往法国。在那里，诺耶尔斯-苏梅的一家医院记录了数百名华工死于呼吸道疾病。
Whether because of the Chinese Labourers, or US Army recruits, large movements of troops were accountable for the rapid diffusion of the virus.
无论是中国劳工还是美国新兵，大规模的军队调动都是病毒迅速传播的原因。
Between May and July the Great flu had spread across virtually the whole of North and Central America, Europe, and Asia.
在5月和7月之间，大流感几乎蔓延到整个北美和中美洲、欧洲和亚洲。
The Pravda in Russia wrote that 'The Spanish Lady' had thrown a whole town, Murom, into disarray.
俄罗斯的《真理报》写道，“西班牙夫人”使整个穆罗姆城镇陷入混乱。
The Times of India reported that "Nearly every house ... has some of its inmates down with (influenza) fever and every office is bewailing the absence of clerks."
《印度时报》报道称，“几乎每家每户……有一些囚犯因感冒发烧病倒了，每个办公室都在为职员的缺席而哀叹。
The epidemic had an obvious impact on the war, which was still raging especially on the Western Front.
“这场流行病对战争产生了明显的影响，战争仍在肆虐，尤其是在西线。
German General Erich Ludendorff complained that "It was a grievous business having to listen every morning to the Chiefs of Staff's recital of the number of influenza cases, and their complaints about the weakness of their troops."
德国将军埃里希· 鲁登多夫抱怨道：“每天早上都要听参谋长们讲述流感病例的数量以及他们对自己部队力量薄弱的抱怨，这是一件令人悲伤的事情。”
