1、JOHH SHOW DEFEATS “KING CHOLERA”John Snow was a famous doctor in London - so expert, indeed, that he attended Queen Victoria as her personal physician. But he became inspired when he thought about helping ordinary people exposed to cholera. This was the deadly disease of its day. Neither its cause n
2、or its cure was understood. So many thousands of terrified people died every time there was an outbreak. John Snow wanted to face the challenge and solve this problem. He knew that cholera would never be controlled until its cause was found. He became interested in two theories that possibly explain
3、ed how cholera killed people. The first suggested that cholera multiplied in the air. A cloud of dangerous gas floated around until it found its victims. The second suggested that people absorbed this disease into their bodies with their meals. From the stomach the disease quickly attacked the body
4、and soon the affected person died.John Snow suspected that the second theory was correct but he needed evidence. So when another outbreak hit London in 1854, he was ready to begin his enquiry. As the disease spread quickly through poor neighbourhoods, he began to gather information. In two particula
5、r streets, the cholera outbreak was so severe that more than 500 people died in ten days. He was determined to find out why.First he marked on a map the exact places where all the dead people had lived. This gave him a valuable clue about the cause of the disease. Many of the deaths were near the wa
6、ter pump in Broad Street （especially numbers 16, 37, 38 and 40）. He also noticed that some houses （such as 20 and 21 Broad Street and 8 and 9 Cambridge Street） had had no deaths. He had not foreseen this, so he made further investigations. He discovered that these people worked in the pub at 7 Cambr
7、idge Street. They had been given free beer and so had not drunk the water from the pump. It seemed that the water was to blame.Next, John Snow looked into the source of the water for these two streets. He found that it came from the river polluted by the dirty water from London. He immediately told
8、the astonished people in Broad Street to remove the handle from the pump so that it could not be used. Soon afterwards the disease slowed down. He had shown that cholera was spread by germs and not in a cloud of gas.In another part of London, he found supporting evidence from two other deaths that w
9、ere linked to the Broad Street outbreak. A woman, who had moved away from Broad Street, liked the water from the pump so much that she had it delivered to her house every day. Both she and her daughter died of cholera after drinking the water. With this extra evidence John Snow was able to announce
10、with certainty that polluted water carried the virus.To prevent this from happening again, John Snow suggested that the source of all the water supplies be examined. The water companies were instructed not to expose people to polluted water any more. Finally King Cholera was defeated.Using LanguageC
11、OPERNICUS REVOLUTIONRRY THEORYNicolaus Copernicus was frightened and his mind was confused. Although he had tried to ignore them, all his mathematical calculations led to the same conclusion: that the earth was not the centre of the solar system. Only if you put the sun there did the movements of th
12、e other planets in the sky make sense. Yet he could not tell anyone about his theory as the powerful Christian Church would have punished him for even suggesting such an idea. They believed God had made the world and for that reason the earth was special and must be the centre of the solar system.Th
13、e problem arose because astronomers had noticed that some planets in the sky seemed to stop, move backward and then go forward in a loop. Others appeared brighter at times and less bright at others. This was very strange if the earth was the centre of the solar system and all planets went round it.C
14、opernicus had thought long and hard about these problems and tried to find an answer. He had collected observations of the stars and used all his mathematical knowledge to explain them. But only his new theory could do that. So between 1510 and 1514 he worked on it, gradually improving his theory un
15、til he felt it was complete.In 1514 he showed it privately to his friends. The changes he made to the old theory were revolutionary. He placed a fixed sun at the centre of the solar system with the planets going round it and only the moon still going round the earth. He also suggested that the earth
16、 was spinning as it went round the sun and this explained changes in the movement of the planets and in the brightness of the stars. His friends were enthusiastic and encouraged him to publish his ideas, but Copernicus was cautious. He did not want to be attacked by the Christian Church, so he only
17、published it as he lay dying in 1543.Certainly he was right to be careful. The Christian Church rejected his theory, saying it was against Gods idea and people who supported it would be attacked. Yet Copernicus theory is now the basis on which all our ideas of the universe are built. His theory repl
18、aced the Christian idea of gravity, which said things fell to earth because God created the earth as the centre of the universe. Copernicus showed this was obviously wrong. Now people can see that there is a direct link between his theory and the work of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Haw
19、king.Unit 2 The United KingdomPUZZLES IN GEOGRAPHY People may wonder why different words are used to describe these four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You can clarify this question if you study British history. First there was England. Wales was linked to it in the thirte
20、enth century. Now when people refer to England you find Wales included as well. Next England and Wales were joined to Scotland in the seventeenth century and the name was changed to Great Britain. Happily this was accomplished without conflict when King James of Scotland became King of England and W
21、ales as well. Finally the English government tried in the early twentieth century to form the United Kingdom by getting Ireland connected in the same peaceful way. However, the southern part of Ireland was unwilling and broke away to form its own government. So only Northern Ireland joined with Engl
22、and, Wales and Scotland to become the United Kingdom and this was shown to the world in a new flag called the Union Jack.To their credit the four countries do work together in some areas （eg, the currency and international relations）, but they still have very different institutions. For example, Nor
23、thern Ireland, England and Scotland have different educational and legal systems as well as different football teams for competitions like the World Cup! England is the largest of the four countries, and for convenience it is divided roughly into three zones. The zone nearest France is called the So
24、uth of England, the middle zone is called the Midlands and the one nearest to Scotland is known as the North. You find most of the population settled in the south, but most of the industrial cities in the Midlands and the North of England. Although, nationwide, these cities are not as large as those
25、 in China, they have world-famous football teams and some of them even have two! It is a pity that the industrial cities built in the nineteenth century do not attract visitors. For historical architecture you have to go to older but smaller towns built by the Romans. There you will find out more ab
26、out British history and culture. The greatest historical treasure of all is London with its museums, art collections, theatres, parks and buildings. It is the centre of national government and its administration. It has the oldest port built by the Romans in the first century AD, the oldest building
27、 begun by the Anglo-Saxons in the 1060s and the oldest castle constructed by later Norman rulers in 1066. There has been four sets of invaders of England. The first invaders, the Romans, left their towns and roads. The second, the Anglo-Saxons, left their language and their government. The third, th
28、e Vikings, influenced the vocabulary and place-names of the North of England, and the fourth, the Normans, left castles and introduced new words for food. If you look around the British countryside you will find evidence of all these invaders. You must keep your eyes open if you are going to make yo
29、ur trip to the United Kingdom enjoyable and worthwhile.SIGHTSEEING IN LONDONWorried about the time available, Zhang Pingyu had made a list of the sites she wanted to see in London. Her first delight was going to the Tower. It was built long ago by the Norman invaders of AD 1066. Fancy! This solid st
30、one, square tower had remained standing for one thousand years.Although the buildings had expanded around it, it remained part of a royal palace and prison combined. To her great surprise, Zhang Pingyu found the Queens jewels guarded by special royal soldiers who, on special occasions, still wore th
31、e four-hundred-year-old uniform of the time of Queen Elizabeth I.There followed St Pauls Cathedral built after the terrible fire of London in 1666. It looked splendid when first built! Westminster Abbey, too, was very interesting. It contained statues in memory of dead poets and writers, such as Sha
32、kespeare. Then just as she came out of the abbey, Pingyu heard the famous sound of the clock, Big Ben, ringing out the hour. She finished the day by looking at the outside of Buckingham Palace, the Queens house in London. Oh, she had so much to tell her friends!The second day the girl visited Greenwich and saw its old ships and famous clock that sets the world time. What interested her most was the longitude line. It is an imaginary line dividing the eastern and western halves of the world and is very useful for navigation. It passes through
