hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 37 題
📖 題組：
The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured. Such a disease is, by definition, mysterious. For as long as its cause was not understood and the ministrations of doctors remained so ineffective, TB was thought to be an insidious, implacable theft of a life. Now it is cancer’s turn to be the disease that doesn’t knock before it enters, cancer fills the role of an illness experienced as a ruthless secret invasion—a role it will keep until, one day, its etiology becomes as clear and its treatment as effective as those of TB have become. Although the way in which disease mystifies is set against a backdrop of new expectations, the disease itself (once TB, cancer today) arouses thoroughly old-fashioned kinds of dread. Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious. Thus, a surprisingly large number of people with cancer find themselves being shunned by relatives and friends and are the object of practices of decontamination by members of their household, as if cancer, like TB, were an infectious disease. Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene—in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses. Cardiac disease implies a weakness, trouble, failure that is mechanical; there is no disgrace, nothing of the taboo that once surrounded peoples afflicted with TB and still surrounds those who have cancer. The metaphors attached to TB and to cancer imply living processes of a particularly resonant and horrid kind.
The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured. Such a disease is, by definition, mysterious. For as long as its cause was not understood and the ministrations of doctors remained so ineffective, TB was thought to be an insidious, implacable theft of a life. Now it is cancer’s turn to be the disease that doesn’t knock before it enters, cancer fills the role of an illness experienced as a ruthless secret invasion—a role it will keep until, one day, its etiology becomes as clear and its treatment as effective as those of TB have become. Although the way in which disease mystifies is set against a backdrop of new expectations, the disease itself (once TB, cancer today) arouses thoroughly old-fashioned kinds of dread. Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious. Thus, a surprisingly large number of people with cancer find themselves being shunned by relatives and friends and are the object of practices of decontamination by members of their household, as if cancer, like TB, were an infectious disease. Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene—in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses. Cardiac disease implies a weakness, trouble, failure that is mechanical; there is no disgrace, nothing of the taboo that once surrounded peoples afflicted with TB and still surrounds those who have cancer. The metaphors attached to TB and to cancer imply living processes of a particularly resonant and horrid kind.
Why does the author compares cancer with TB?
- A Because physicians had a great discovery about their formation.
- B Because both were considered incurable.
- C Because both are contagious.
- D Because both are infectious.
思路引導 VIP
請回想一下文章第一段提到的內容：作者在描述肺結核與癌症時，特別強調了這兩種疾病在當時的醫療環境下，醫師對它們的成因（etiology）了解多少？以及當時的醫療手段是否能有效地解決這些病症？這種「無法掌控」的狀態，是透過哪個關鍵詞來形容的呢？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到文章的核心對比，這說明你具備了非常優秀的文本整合與跨段落歸納能力。這道題目確實具有相當的鑑別度，因為它考驗學生是否能區分「疾病的生物特性」與「社會對疾病的認知」。
疾病的神秘感與不可治癒性
文章一開頭便點出，無論是過去的肺結核（TB）還是現在的癌症，它們之所以被拿來類比，是因為兩者都被視為難以捉摸且無法處理（intractable）的。作者強調，在醫學宣稱「所有疾病都能治癒」的時代，這類病因不明、醫療手段無效的疾病便會被賦予「神秘」的色彩。你選擇 (B) 選項是非常敏銳的判斷，因為文中明確提到這兩種疾病在各自的時代裡，其治療（treatment）都曾是低效甚至無效的，這正是它們被聯想在一起的根本原因。
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