雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Malaria in Italy

雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Malaria in Italy

A

Everybody now knows that malaria is carried by mosquitoes. But in the 19th century, most experts believed that the disease was produced by “miasma” or “unclean air”. Others made a link between swamps, water and malaria, but did not make the further leap towards insects. The consequences of these theories were that little was done to combat the disease before the end of the century. Things became so bad that 11m Italians (from a total population of 25m) were “permanently at risk”. In malarial zones the life expectancy of land workers was a terrifying 22.5 years. Those who escaped death were weakened or suffered from splenomegaly – a “painful enlargement of the spleen’” and “a lifeless stare”. The economic impact of the disease was immense. Epidemics were blamed on southern Italians, given the widespread belief that malaria was hereditary. In the 1880s, such theories began to collapse as the dreaded mosquito was identified as the real culprit.

B

Italian scientists, drawing on the pioneering work of French doctor Alphonse Laveran, were able to predict the cycles of fever but it was in Rome that further key discoveries were made. Giovanni Battista Grassi, a naturalist, found that a particular type of mosquito was the carrier of malaria. By experimenting on healthy volunteers (mosquitoes were released into rooms where they drank the blood of the human guinea pigs), Grassi was able to make the direct link between the insects (all females of a certain kind) and the disease. Soon, doctors and scientists made another startling discovery: the mosquitoes themselves were also infected and not mere carriers. Every year, during the mosquito season, malarial blood was moved around the population by the insects. Definitive proof of these new theories was obtained after an extraordinary series of experiments in Italy, where healthy people were introduced into malarial zones but kept free of mosquito bites – and remained well. The new Italian state had the necessary information to tackle the disease.

C

A complicated approach was adopted, which made use of quinine – a drug obtained from tree bark which had long been used to combat fever, but was now seen as a crucial part of the war on malaria. Italy introduced a quinine law and a quinine tax in 1904, and the drug was administered to large numbers of rural workers. Despite its often terrible side-effects (the headaches produced were known as the “quinine-buzz”) the drug was successful in limiting the spread of the disease, and in breaking cycles of infection. In addition, Italy set up rural health centres and invested heavily in education programmes. Malaria, as Snowden shows, was not just a medical problem, but a social and regional issue, and could only be defeated through multi-layered strategies. Politics was itself transformed by the anti- malarial campaigns.

D

It was originally decided to give quinine to all those in certain regions – even healthy people; peasants were often suspicious of medicine being forced upon them. Doctors were sometimes met with hostility and refusal, and many were dubbed “poisoners”. Despite these problems, the strategy was hugely successful. Deaths from malaria fell by some 80% in the first decade of the 20th century and some areas escaped altogether from the scourge of the disease.

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雅思阅读真题题目：

Questions 14-17

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage. Using NO MORE THAN TWO words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answer in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

Malaria was a key issue for medical expert in the past, it is well-acknowledged that there are potential link with mosquitoes and 14...... In 19 century majority of expert did not realize that 15...... wasn’ t the real cause. In Italy, the 16...... of people from infected zone was as low as 22.5 years. It was even once attributed to the southern Italians, claimed that malaria was 17....... All above hypothesis were denied finally and real cause emerged.

Questions 18-21

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?

In boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet write.

YES if the statement agrees with the information

NO if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

18 Wrong perspectives slowed the development of fighting malaria in the end of 19 century.

19 Volunteers in Grassi experiments were from all parts of the Italy.

20 Mosquitoes were just carriers of Malaria instead of being infected themselves.

21 Fighting malaria was an issue which needs efforts from combined strategies.

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