2.(★★★★★)Millions of people use contact lenses(隐形眼镜).For anyone who doesn’t mind sticking his fingers in his
eyes,there are clear advantages:contacts correct vision better than glasses,are
less often crushed underfoot,don’t make you look boring,and
come in a huge variety of forms--soft,firm,colored,and even
theatrical.
More and more people are
turning to use of contact lenses.But are they safe?
Latest research from Australia
shows that not all chemicals are effective in killing all germs(细菌)--and some of these germs can cause
blindness in just 24 hours.
While most problems with
contacts still can go back to poor hygiene(卫生)or
overuse,not all sight-threatening conditions only happen to those who wash
their lenses under the tap or decide,while tired and emotional,to sleep in
their lenses for the third night running.
Two of the biggest
eye-damaging killers--protozoan acanthamoeba and
bacteria pseudomonas--are all around us,in our homes
and water supplies.This seemingly harmless pair can cause blindness through
keratitis(disease of the cornea).
“The cornea(角膜)is
like a five-layered sandwich”,says Raymond Curran,a doctor
from Omagh,Northern Ireland.“Once the bacteria get into a
layer they can reproduce there and turn the cornea opaque(too dark to see
through).”
An optician(验光师)may see one possibly sight-threatening
case each month,but at an eye hospital there may be several each
week.Acanthamoeba,often seemingly mild,can be misjudged until it is too
late.Meanwhile,pseudomonas,more seriously,can cause increasing sight loss with
each hour that passes.If not treated immediately,patients may need a corneal
replacement.
And the really bad
news,according to Professor Roger Buckley,at the Moorfields eye hospital in
London,is that acanthamoeba is“one of the hardest germs on
Earth”--it can survive in Antarctica.
Question 2:In the passage the
writer mainly wants to tell us ________.
A.the possible danger of
contacts
B.the importance of keeping
contacts clean
C.some doctors’ opinions about contacts
D.the advantages and
disadvantages of contacts