In west Africa today, as in early 20th-century Manchuria or England at the time of the Black Death, travellers are often unwelcome. When eight healthcare workers and journalists showed up at a village near Guinea’s second city of Nzerekore in September, they planned to explain how to protect against the Ebola virus that has killed at least 4,500 people this year. Instead they were set upon by locals wielding machetes and clubs. Some of the visitors’ bodies were later found in the village latrine.
和20世纪早期黑死病流行时的满洲及英国一样，在今天的西非，旅行者往往不受欢迎。今年9月，8名医务工作者及记者来到几内亚第二大城市恩泽雷科雷(Nzerekore)附近的一个村庄，原本计划告诉村民应采取哪些措施来防范埃博拉病毒（这种病毒今年已导致至少4500人丧生），然而，当地人却手持大砍刀和棍棒攻击了他们。后来，人们在村里的茅坑里找到了几个遇难者的遗体。
Joseph Fair, an American virologist who worked in the region in 2004, says the villagers – fearful of Ebola, witchcraft and unknown foreigners “showing up in space suits” – were trying to cut themselves off from the outside world. Self-isolation has been tried before, and sometimes it works. In 1910, as plague was spreading across the mountainous region of northeast China, several towns barred entry to outsiders. Reliable men were deputised to travel to market and return swiftly carrying essential supplies. Pneumonic plague claimed perhaps 60,000 lives in Manchuria that year. But the closed off villages stayed free of the disease.
2004年曾在该地区工作过的美国病毒学家约瑟夫•费尔(Joseph Fair)表示，埃博拉、巫术及“身着‘太空服’出现的”陌生外国人让村民们心生恐惧，他们正试图切断与外界的联系。过去，人们尝试过这种自我隔离措施，有时候这种措施也会奏效。1910年，当鼠疫在中国东北部山区蔓延时，几个城镇曾封堵了外人进入城镇的入口，只派可靠男子代表全城去市场采买必要物资后迅速返回。就在那年，肺鼠疫导致了满洲或许6万人丧生。然而，对外封闭的村庄却没有感染这种疾病。
The bacteria that cause plague can travel through the air or be passed on in the bite of an infected flea. Ebola is less contagious and therefore less deadly, but there are haunting similarities all the same. Ebola’s long incubation period allows patients to flee outbreaks while still healthy. Plague strikes faster, but it is what bacteriologists call a “stealth infection” – victims feel quite well while the illness silently devastates their bodies. As Giovanni Boccaccio, the Renaissance poet, put it, men ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise. A victim might ride for three days before dying. Both diseases thrive on fear and flight.
导致鼠疫的病菌能通过空气传播，被受感染跳蚤叮咬也是一种传播手段。埃博拉传染性没有这么强，从而降低了它的致命性。不过，两者间还是存在可怕的相似之处。埃博拉的漫长潜伏期令患者能够在身体仍然健康时逃离疫区。鼠疫的发作要快得多，不过细菌学家称鼠疫为一种“隐秘感染”——在疾病悄悄吞噬身体之际，受害者却感觉良好。正如文艺复兴时期的诗人乔万尼•薄伽丘(Giovanni Boccaccio)所形容的，人们在与朋友吃过午餐之后，再在天堂与先祖享用晚餐。在死亡前，感染者可能会四处活动三天之久。这两种疾病的传播还都会因人们的恐惧和逃亡而加快。
For now the best weapons against Ebola are still the oldest: quarantine of the exposed (a word and an idea invented by Italian city states in the 14th century) and isolation of the sick. This, after all, is how plague was eventually stopped in the early 20th century.
就目前而言，对抗埃博拉的最佳武器仍然是最古老的方法：对暴露者实施隔离检疫(quarantine，这个名词和这种方法是14世纪意大利各城邦发明的)；对感染者实施完全隔离。毕竟，20世纪早期人们就是用这种办法最终扑灭鼠疫的。
Wu Lien-teh, the Cambridge-educated physician who co-ordinated the medical response in Manchuria, commanded a corps of 600 police officers backed up by Chinese soldiers. People were forced into quarantine, mostly in the open air where pneumonic plague could not easily spread. Those who showed symptoms were carted off to hospitals to die (in these years before antibiotics, none survived). Infectious bodies littered the streets and Wu applied to the Chinese emperor for permission to burn them, even though the practice went against all Chinese tradition. When cremation began, the epidemic begin to subside.
曾受教于剑桥大学(Cambridge)的伍连德(Wu Lien-teh)医生曾协调组织了满洲的医疗应对措施。他曾指挥过一个由600名警官组成的团队，并得到了中国军队的支援。当时，人们被强制实行隔离检疫，实施场所主要是肺鼠疫不易传播的露天环境。出现症状的人们被运往医院等待死亡（在那个没有抗生素的年代，没有人能生还）。当时，感染者遗体被随意抛在街头，伍连德为此曾请求中国皇帝批准焚烧这些遗体——尽管这么完全违背中国人的传统。采取尸体火化措施之后，这种传染病开始消退。
Tender emotions can be deadly in a time of infectious disease. Knowing that plague was fatal, many Manchurians drove out their infected relatives to die on the streets, huddling with other outcasts for warmth. In west Africa, however, Ebola is being spread by love as well as fear. There people are tenderly caring for their dying and their dead. In the absence of proper equipment – masks, gloves, disinfectant – these human offices play a large part in spreading the disease.
在传染病肆虐的时代，温情可能是致命的。因为知道鼠疫是致命的，许多满洲人都把受感染的亲属赶出家门，让他们与其他被亲人抛弃的病人一起在街上抱团取暖，然后死在街头。然而，在西非，恐惧和爱都在传播埃博拉。在西非，人们会悉心照顾那些即将死去和已经死去的病人。由于缺乏口罩、手套、消毒剂等适当防护物资，这种人道善举在疾病的传播中起到了巨大作用。
So does flight. The people of Ganta in Liberia, fearing the quarantine imposed on neighbouring towns and the dead bodies lying in the streets, left in August by the hundreds. They piled into taxis or clung to motorbikes carrying food – and no doubt Ebola too.
逃亡也起到了巨大作用。今年8月，几百名利比里亚甘塔的居民逃离了该市，原因是相邻的城镇被隔离检疫以及街头出现倒伏的尸体让他们感到恐惧。他们成群地挤上出租车或摩托车逃亡，携带着食品——当然还有埃博拉病毒。
It is unlikely that vaccines and experimental drugs can save west Africa from Ebola. We need to apply the old methods that broke the Manchurian plague, with the sensitivity that is needed if they are to succeed today. Humanity, in the end, is what will overcome this plague of the modern world.
目前，用疫苗和实验性药物让西非摆脱埃博拉魔爪的可能性不大。我们必须采取当年曾扑灭满洲鼠疫的古老方法，并加以人性的态度，要让古老方法在当今世界取得成功，这种态度是必须的。说到底，消灭这种现代版“鼠疫”还是要靠人道主义。
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