smoke and mirrors #2
家庭内のガスコンロから排出される煙は目に見えない悪影響を及ぼします。
Smoke and mirrors
Do smoke-free stoves really save lives?
"Exposure to household air pollution is a problem of poverty," says Kevin Mortimer, a medical doctor and a respiratory health researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. "If you're not poor, you're not exposed."
About 2.8 billion people - between a third and a half of the world's population - burn solid fuel such as wood, crop waste, charcoal, coal and dung to cook their food in open fires and leaky stoves.
Inside those homes, cooking smoke is eye-stingingly visible, and it blackens the walls. But the invisible effect it has on the tiniest, branching airways of the lungs is what makes this a global crisis.
Those smoke particles are taken up by cells that form part of the natural defences of the lungs. In doing that, they diminish the function of these cells, increasing the risk of infections and chronic illness. Crucially, smoke is a key driver of child pneumonia - a leading cause of death in children under five in many countries across the developing world.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38160671
今回気になったのはsmoke and mirrorsです。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館書店）では「（米）目をくらますもの、巧みなごまかし」とありました。
煙にまかれて消えてしまう様子が想像できますが、なぜ「鏡」が複数形で用いられているのでしょうか。
語源を調べてみると、Wikipediaで“The source of the name is based on magicians' illusions, where magicians make objects appear or disappear by extending or retracting mirrors amid a distracting burst of smoke.”とあるように、マジシャンが鏡の反射と煙を使って瞬間移動することからきているようです。
この記事では、煙が肺にもたらす悪影響が例えられています。(flyingbird)
