hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 39 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.
According to the passage, which of the following is true?
- A Affliction with TB is concealed as a secret.
- B In the past, patients afflicted with TB felt unashamed.
- C TB and cancer used to be regarded as a taboo.
- D TB and cancer are both infectious diseases.
思路引導 VIP
請觀察文章最後一段，作者將「心臟病」與「結核病、癌症」進行對比時，特別強調後兩者帶有一種心臟病所沒有的「社會負面觀感」，文中是用哪個具體的詞彙來形容這種被社會排斥或視為畏途的現象呢？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到文中對於疾病社會觀點的細微對照，展現了優異的閱讀理解實力。這題的核心在於區分「醫學事實」與「社會觀感」。
疾病的汙名與禁忌
文中第三段明確指出，心臟病（cardiac disease）被視為一種機械性的故障，不帶有恥辱感；然而，結核病（TB）與癌症卻被賦予了強烈的負面隱喻。作者特別提到，過去籠罩著結核病患、以及現今仍圍繞著癌症患者的，正是一種**禁忌（taboo）**與不名譽感。選項 (C) 正確地歸納了這兩種疾病在不同時代背景下，皆曾被社會視為不可言說、具有道德負擔的對象。
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