新概念英語第四冊（美音版）Patients and doctors

[00:00.31]Lesson 28 [00:02.34]Patients and doctors [00:09.46]What are patients looking for when they visit the doctor? [00:14.79]This is a sceptical age, [00:16.94]but although our faith in many of the things in which our forefathers fervently believed has weakened, [00:23.70]our confidence in the curative properties of the bottle of medicine remains the same as theirs. [00:30.52]This modern faith in medicines is proved by the fact [00:34.23]that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is mounting to astronomical figures. [00:40.51]and shows no signs at present of ceasing to rise. [00:45.25]The majority of the patients attending the medical out-patients departments of our hospitals feel that [00:51.22]they have not received adequate treatment unless they are able to carry home with them [00:56.22]some tangible remedy in the shape of a bottle of medicine, [01:00.29]a box of pills, or a small jar of ointment, [01:04.21]and the doctor in charge of the department is only too ready to provide them with these requirements. [01:10.98]There is no quicker method of disposing of patients than by giving them what they are asking for, [01:17.30]and since most medical men in the Health Services are overworked [01:21.58]and have little time for offering time-consuming and little-appreciated advice on such subjects as diet, [01:29.10]right living, and the need for abandoning bad habits etc., [01:33.81]the bottle, the box, and the jar are almost always granted them. [01:39.03]Nor is it only the ignorant and ill-educated person who has such faith in the bottle of medicine. [01:45.79]It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle that when he heard of the illness of his friend, Henry Taylor, [01:52.98]he went off immediately to visit him, [01:55.99]carrying with him in his pocket what remained a bottle of medicine formerly prescribed for an indisposition of Mrs. Carlyle's. [02:06.16]Carlyle was entirely ignorant of what the bottle in his pocket contained, [02:11.22]of the nature of the illness from which his friend was suffering, [02:15.02]and of what had previously been wrong with his wife, [02:18.70]but a medicine that had worked so well in one form of illness would surely be of equal benefit in another, [02:25.88]and comforted by the thought of the help he was bringing to his friend, [02:30.16]he hastened to Henry Taylor's house. [02:33.66]History does not relate whether his friend accepted his medical help, but in all probability he did. [02:40.74]The great advantage of taking medicine is that it makes no demands on the taker [02:45.65]beyond that of putting up for a moment with a disgusting taste, [02:49.86]and that is what all patients demand of their doctors--to be cured at no inconvenience to themselves.

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