雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第1章21:自然奇蹟

NaturAl Wonders did not have much to say about chemistry, except in terms of poisons. A strong defence of Temperance, not to say Prohibition, flowed from Brewster's scientific pen:

《自然奇蹟》裏面沒有講太多的化學，只有一點關於毒物的知識。布魯斯特講得並不很學術，他說：

The life of any creature, man, animal or plant, is one long fight against being poisoned. The poisons get us in all sorts of ways … like alcohol, ether, chloroform, the various alkaloids, such as strychnin and atropin and cocain, which we use as medicines, and nicotin, which is the alkaloid of tobacco, the poisons of many toadstools, caffein which we get in tea and coffee. …

任何一種生物，無論是人還是植物，一生都是在與各種毒物鬥爭。毒物會通過各種渠道找上我們……酒精，氯仿，各種生物鹼，比如做藥的可卡因，還有尼古丁，也就是菸草的生物鹼，各種毒菌的毒，以及我們喝的咖啡因……

There was another section headed 'Of Sugar and Other Poisons', explaining the effect of carbon dioxide in the blood, causing fatigue, and the action of the brain:

還有一章叫作《關於糖和其他毒物》，談到了二氧化碳在血液中產生的影響，以及大腦對此的反應：

When the nerve center in the neck tastes a little carbon dioxid, it doesn't say anything. But the moment the taste begins to get strong (which is in less than a quarter minute after one starts running hard) it telephones over the nerves to the lungs: 'Here, here, here! What is the matter with you fellows Get busy. Breathe hard. This blood is fairly sizzling with burnt up sugar!'

當脖子裏的神經中樞剛嚐到一點兒二氧化碳時，它不會怎麼樣，但當這種感覺開始增強時（大概15秒以內），它就會通過神經傳達給肺，它會說：「嘿嘿嘿！你們怎麼回事？趕快乾活了！用力呼吸！否則血液就要開始燃燒血糖了！」

All this was grist to Alan's mill, although at this point what interested him was the more sober claim that:

艾倫覺得這些都很有趣，但是下面這段關於「蘇打」的比喻更有趣：