雅思阅读素材下载：工业革命和茶

　　In 1947 at 6 years of age, Macfarlane, the son of a tea planter in Assam,came to England and the difference between Third World India and the homelandhit him hard. He remembers, "From the cosy, warm outpost, I arrived in thedepths of one of the coldest winters. Britain was more efficient but seemed tohave lost some of the emotion and warmth of the place I had come from. Eversince then, I have wanted to know how these two worlds could have diverged so".The difference he guessed was down to industrialisation, which brought him roundto the question; how did the Industrial Revolution come about?

　　For historians there was one interesting factor around the mid-18th centurythat required explanation. Between about 1650-1740, the population was static,but then there was a burst in population. Macfarlane says "The infant mortalityrate halved in the space of 20 years, and this happened in both rural areas andcities, and across all classes." Four possible causes have been suggested; wasthere a sudden change in the viruses and bacteria around? -unlikely. Was there arevolution in medical science?- this was a century before Listers revolution.Was there a change in environmental conditions? - there were improvements inagriculture that wiped out malaria, but these were small gains and sanitationdid not become wide spreads until the 19th century. The only option left isfood, however the height and weight statistics show a decline at this time, sofood actually got worse and efforts to explain the sudden reduction in childdeaths appeared to draw a blank....