饮水、深井与氟齿病——全球化视野下清末民初天津地下水资源开发及影响

Drinking Water,Artesian Wells and Dental Fluorosis:The Exploration and Influence of Groundwater Resources in the Late Qing and the Early Republican Periods in a Global Perspective

天津平原低平临海,水质咸涩,地表水和浅层地下水不堪饮用。1860年天津开埠建立租界,受全球流行性疾病和卫生革命影响,租界中的西方人出于自身卫生安全而在天津寻找新的清洁水源。他们改革了天津的供排水设施,建立了第一套自来水系统,随后又引入机器钻井技术,发掘深层地下水。然而在新水源投入使用八年后,租界出现儿童氟齿病例,调研显示病因为井水氟化物超标,自此天津成为地域性氟病高发区。这一典型案例体现了全球化对清末民初中国城市的影响,其中由人为造成的意外后果,正是恩格斯在《自然辩证法》中所指出的与人类目标"完全不同的、出乎预料的影响",表明了人与自然关系的极端复杂性,对当今和未来生态城市建设具有重要警示意义。

Because the Tianjin plain was low,flat,and very close to the sea,both the surface and groundwater of Tianjin suffered from saltwater intrusion that made the water too bitter to drink.Affected by global pandemic diseases and the international sanitation revolution,foreigners in the Tianjin concessions,which were established in 1860,started to look for a supply of sanitary water conforming to the new standard to ensure their health and safety.To this end,they updated the water supply and drainage equipment,established the first running water system,and introduced the mechanical drilling technique to explore deep groundwater.Eight years after the deep groundwater was put into use,the first case of pediatric dental fluorosis,which was later discovered to be caused by excessive fluoride in artesian well water,was reported in the English concession of Tianjin.Thereafter,Tianjin became a high-incidence area for endemic dental fluorosis.Tianjin’s experience reflected the typical influence of globalization on a Chinese city during the late Qing and early Republican periods.Such unintended consequences of human actions were exactly what Friedrich Engels described in Dialectics of Nature,the "quite different,unforeseen effects" from the result we expect.The history of Tianjin’s water supply illustrates the extremely complex relationship between man and nature that can serve as an important warning to the construction of the ecological city in the present and future.