从环境史看安特生对20世纪20年代中国的考察

Andersson’s China Survey in the 1920s:A Perspective of Environmental History

瑞典科学家安特生1926年出版《龙与洋鬼子》一书,他在该书中盛赞了中国多层次循环的农业生态系统,认为这是人类农业发展的未来。安特生详细记录了他在戈壁的沙井村亲身经历的中国农民利用在沙漠中种植豆科植物(“紫云英”)来收集“氮肥”的做法,认为这是保持土壤肥力的“法宝”。安特生非常重视环境的可持续发展,在书中他对华北的沙尘暴以及中国人对原始森林的砍伐都作了详细的描述。疾病史是环境史的一个重要组成部分,安特生对中国寄生虫(虱子)病的流行情况,沙眼病的传播途径,以及1918年秋季在华北山区流行的西班牙大流感都予以了记载和分析。这些记载构成了20世纪20年代有关中国环境史的重要文献。

Johan Gunnar Andersson(1874⁃1960),a Swedish scientist,published The Dragon and the Foreign Devils in 1926.In this book,he spoke in glowing terms of the multi⁃level circular agricultural ecosystem in China,deeming it the future of human agriculture.Andersson recorded in detail his personal experience in Shajing Village(沙井村)in the Gobi desert,where Chinese farmers collected“nitrogen fertilizer”by growing plants of the legume family(“Chinese milk vetch”),and considered it a magic weapon to maintain soil fertility.Andersson attached great importance to the sustainable development of the environment.In his book,he gave a detailed description of the sandstorm in North China and the cutting of the virgin forests by the Chinese people.The history of disease is an important part of environmental history.Andersson recorded and analyzed the epidemic situation of parasitic diseases(lice)in China,the transmission route of Trachoma,and the Spanish flu epidemic in the mountains of North China in the autumn of 1918.These records become important documents on the environmental history of China in the 1920s.