医学英语教程课文翻译Unit1

Unit 1

Reading A The Human complex— A Never –failing Source of Wonderment

(人类的复杂性——一个永远不会失去惊叹的话题)

“ In my view, ” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1814 , “no knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions. ” Distinguished thinkers before and since Jefferson have held this belief, but curiously, it is not one that the average person wholeheartedly shares.Man’s attitude toward his own body—his single most precious possession—is decidedly ambivalent. At one and the same time he is fascinated by it and fearful of it, partly in echo of ancient taboos, partly in the conviction that the body is too complicated to understand.

( “在我看来，”托马斯杰佛逊于1814年写道：“对人来说，没有什么知识会比了解自身的架构、部件、功能和作用更能使他满足。”包括杰佛逊在内的杰出思想家均持有这个观点，但有趣的是，这个观点并不为普罗大众所由衷地接受。人们对自己的身体，这个对他自身来说最为宝贵的财富，态度其实是充满矛盾的。一方面，人们被肉体的奥妙所深深着迷，另一方面，却又对其深感敬畏，这在一定程度上与远古的忌禁遥相呼应，也在一定程度上反映了人们确信肉体过于复杂而难以理解。)

The possible approaches to a study of the body are legion.To the cynic, the body is no more than a tenement of clay; to the poet, a palace of the soul; to the physician, an all-too-ailing hulk. The psychiatrist sees it as a housing for the mind and personality. The geneticist sees it as a perpetuator of its own kind.The biologist sees it as an organism which can alter the future as a result of the experience of the past.

( 研究人体的途径可谓纷繁多样。对愤世嫉俗者来说，人体贱为粘土陋室；对吟诗作赋者来说，人体尊为灵魂的宫殿；对救死扶伤者来说，人体悲为脆弱多病的躯壳。精神病学家视其为思想和性格的居所。遗传学家当其为自我繁衍的机器。生物学家视其为能借过往的经验来改变未来的生命体。)

All the specialized scientific views of the body are valid. All, however, must start from the same premise: an awareness of the body’s basic structure and functions—its anatomy and physiology. And the bedrock principle of our present understanding of the body is that all living matter is composed of cells basically similar in structure and function.

（所有有关人体的专业科学的观点都是有意义的，然而，所有的这些都必须从同一个前提开始：那就是对研究人体的基本结构和功能的解剖学和生理学的认识。我们对身体的了解的基本原则是，所有生物都是由结构和功能基本相似的细胞构成的。）

A Swarm of Tiny Specialists

(一帮微缩的专家)

Studies of the cell—what it is , what it does and how it reproduces itself —have revealed it to be a fantastically complex world in itself. One of the major wonders of the cell is the disparity between its minuteness and the prodigiousness of its activity. Each cell is so tiny that millions of them may be found in a half-inch cube of human body tissue. Yet each comprises an almost unimaginably busy chemical laboratory with a highly ordered division of labor.

（关于细胞的研究——细胞是什么，它是干什么的和如何复制的——已经显露出细胞本身那令人难以置信的复杂世界。细胞的一个主要的神奇之处在于其体积的微细与其活性之间的巨大差距。每个细胞是如此渺小，以至于数以万计的细胞有可能被发现在一个半英寸立方体大小的人体组织中。然而，每个细胞都堪比一个繁忙到难以想象的并有着高度的分工的化学实验室。）

The cell has two main parts: a nucleus, containing the genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and a surrounding semifluid cytoplasm.

Bounding the cytoplasm is the cell membrane, which keeps the cell contents in and undesirable material out, yet permits passage of both proper nutrients and wastes. The nucleus—cell headquarters—governs the major activities of the cytoplasm; its finest hour, however, comes at reproduction time, when chromosomes containing DNA split. It is in

the cytoplasm, that the cell’s day to day business is carried on. Each of its various components, or organelles, is a specialist of surpassing skill. one type breaks down the food given entry by the cell membrane and converts it into energy .Another provides the

site for the synthesis of protein—along with reproduction, a major function of most

cells. Another packages the manufactured protein for transport wherever needed in the body.

（细胞有两个主要部分：含有遗传物质脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）的细胞核，以及周围呈半流

质的细胞质。包围着细胞质的是细胞膜，它包含着细胞内容物并将不需要的物质隔离在外，然而它允许营养物质和代谢废物通过。细胞核——细胞的指挥部——调控细胞质的主要活动；