ElizabethAnionwu, who has received four honorary degrees for her excellent work -组卷网

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Elizabeth Anionwu, who has received four honorary degrees for her excellent work in nursing, has devoted her life to improving the lives of thousands in the black community who are suffering with sickle cell disease.

Born to an Irish woman and a Nigerian man, her own upbringing was tarnished by racial discrimination and cruelty. Soon after her birth in 1947, she was sent away to a children’s home run by nuns (修女) who were, at times, very unkind indeed. Once, she was made to stand with a dirty wet sheet over her head as a punishment for wetting the bed.

But a caring nursing nun she met at the age of four inspired her career in nursing. “I had painful eczema (湿疹), which the nuns would treat with a special medicine and cover with bandages,” she explains. “Other nuns would tear them off in a hurry and my skin would break and bleed. But one nice nun treated me very gently and I never felt a thing. Later on, I discovered she was a nurse and I decided that’s what I wanted to be.” At 16 she became a school nurse assistant, which was the start of a 50-year career as a nurse and professor.

In the early 70s, Anionwu had her first encounter with sickle cell anaemia-a painful disease found mostly in African and Caribbean families-which at the time was often overlooked. Families had no information about how to cope with their illness or the symptoms to look out for, so Anionwu took action, raising awareness of the disease and setting up the Sickle Cell Society. It’s then that she became the first sickle cell and thalassemia (地中海贫血症) specialist in Britain.

Elizabeth Anionwu has spent her life as a nurse and tutor, working with black and minority communities in London. In 2019, she was presented with the Pride Of Britain’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her great services to nursing.

【小题1】What does the underlined word “tarnished” in paragraph 2 probably mean?