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In 1969, a doctor at a Yale University lab in New Haven, Connecticut, who was studying Lassa fever came down with it. He survived, but, more alarmingly, a technician in a nearby lab, with no direct exposure, also contracted the disease and died.
1969年，設在康涅狄格州紐黑文的耶魯大學實驗室里的一名醫生在研究拉沙熱的過程中倒下了，然而他活了下來。但更加令人吃驚的是，附近有個實驗室的一名技術人員雖然沒有直接接觸病毒，但也感染上了那種疾病，他死了。
Happily the outbreak stopped there, but we can't count on such good fortune always. Our lifestyles invite epidemics. Air travel makes it possible to spread infectious agents across the planet with amazing ease. An ebola virus could begin the day in, say, Benin, and finish it in New York or Hamburg or Nairobi, or all three. It means also that medical authorities increasingly need to be acquainted with pretty much every malady that exists everywhere, but of course they are not.
幸虧這次爆發就到此為止，但我們不能指望老是那么運氣。我們的生活方式招致傳染病。空中旅行使傳染病病原體輕而易舉地在全球傳播成為可能。比如說一個伊波拉病毒傳染病病原體可以在一天內從非洲貝寧啟程，最后抵達紐約，或漢堡，或肯尼亞內羅華，或同時三個地方。這還意味著，醫療當局需要非常熟悉存在于每個地方的每一種疾病，但這當然是不可能的。
In 1990, a Nigerian living in Chicago was exposed to Lassa fever on a visit to his homeland, but didn't develop symptoms until he had returned to the United States. He died in a Chicago hospital without diagnosis and without anyone taking any special precautions in treating him, unaware that he had one of the most lethal and infectious diseases on the planet. Miraculously, no one else was infected. We may not be so lucky next time.
1990年，一個家住芝加哥的尼日利亞人在訪問故鄉的過程中接觸了拉沙熱，但是回到美國以后才出現癥狀。他未經診斷就死在一家芝加哥的醫院里。在治療他的過程中，誰也沒有采取防預性措施，因為誰也不知道他患的是世界上最致命、最容易傳染的一種疾病。令人稱奇的是，別人都沒有感染。下一次我們也許不會那樣去運了。
And on that sobering note, it's time to return to the world of the visibly living.
說到這里，我們的話題該回到可見生物的世界來了。
