One morning more than 100 years ago, residents of London’s Broad Street went to the public water pump on the street to get water as usual. At this time, an administrator of the London Water Supply Company ran breathlessly, shouting and shouting: “The pump is stopped, no one can take water here!”
“What happened?”
The administrator said loudly, “Dr. John Snow said that this would stop cholera.”
It turned out that the outbreak of cholera that summer caused many Londoners to die from the disease. The prevailing view at the time was that the cholera virus propagated and floated in the air, infecting people with weak constitutions. Dr. Snow believes that cholera may come from the mouth and affect the whole body. In order to verify his point of view, he took the risk to go deep into the patient’s home, inquire about their living habits in detail, and mark the address of the deceased on the map.
After a hard investigation, Dr. Snow found that almost all deaths were concentrated on Broad Street. The closer to the public water pump, the denser the deaths. The people working in the Brewery Avenue Brewery are not sick, because those people usually only drink beer to quench their thirst. Dr. Snow reached a conclusion: the transmission medium of cholera is water, and it is the pump on Broad Street that caused the cholera.
Dr. Snow quickly wrote an investigation report, requesting that the pump be shut down. Officials immediately sent someone to dismantle the pump handle, and issued an order to prohibit water from being taken there. Soon after, the cholera epidemic gradually disappeared.
To commemorate Dr. Snow, there is still a handleless pump on Broad Street in London.
The hero is sometimes an ordinary person. He is digging out the truth at a critical moment and telling everyone. It’s that simple.
(Author: Sun Jianyong)
The thoughts of others
Lao Ma is a Chinese teacher. He often uses his spare time to write articles. This semester, Lao Ma’s original single office added two desks, and a young man and two young teachers were added.
Soon, Lao Ma discovered that the two new colleagues had been talking and laughing. When they saw Lao Ma coming, they immediately stopped talking. One evening, Lao Ma went to the evening for self-study, and heard the two colleagues in the office chatting from afar. The female teacher just said “teacher Ma”. She glimpsed the figure of Lao Ma from the window and closed immediately. Mouthless.
Lao Ma suspected that they were talking bad things about him, so he wrote a short essay “Other People’s Minds Are Hard to Guess”, which ends with a Japanese haiku: “Flying Swallows, grunting, are you talking about me? ?” The article was posted in the school newspaper and was quickly read by two colleagues.
That evening, the two colleagues warmly invited Lao Ma to dinner together. After a few glasses of wine, the female teacher said: “Mr. Ma, do you know why we didn’t speak when you were in the office? Because the director told us that Ms. Ma is a famous campus writer, don’t be loud Chat, interfere with his writing.”
More communication can resolve misunderstandings and realize the goodwill of others.
(Author: Hu Chuanhu)
Walk an extra mile
In 1927, the New York Transit Company established the “New York Station” in the New York neighborhood where black people live. ? ? ? At that time, racial discrimination was serious, and a white driver refused to stop at the New York Station unless someone had to get off or there were white people waiting for the car.
Once, a white girl named Emily occasionally went to the New York Station to wait for the bus. As soon as she arrived at the station, she heard several black people say in surprise: “Great, a white girl is here!” Ai Mi Li is very strange. After understanding the whole story, she felt that she was not in the mood. After that, she would walk an extra mile every morning and wait for the bus at New York Station. Those blacks who need to go out will wait with Emily in the morning.
After two months, a bus driver asked Emily curiously how she lived in the black block, and the black man in the car looked at her curiously.
Emily smiled and said, “Actually, I live in the Brookhending neighborhood.”
“Then why do you come to Xinyuk Station every day to wait for the bus?” The driver was more curious.
“Because you only see white people, you will stop the car.” Emily said.
The driver was influenced, and he said to Emily: “We will stop here in the future.”
After that day, the black people in the New Yuk neighborhood enjoyed fair treatment by bus.
Sometimes it is not difficult to change the status quo, a small act of kindness can do it.
