英语阅读：一个疑病症患者国度.doc

美联英语提供：英语阅读：A Nation of Hypochondriacs 一个疑病症患者的国度 两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平 /test/kuaisu.aspx?tid=16-73675-0 A Nation of Hypochondriacs 一个疑病症患者的国度 The main impression growing out of twelve years on the faculty of a medical school is that the No.1 health problem in the U.S. today, even more than AIDS or cancer, is that Americans dont know how to think about health and illness. Our reactions are formed on the terror level. We fear the worst, expect the worst, thus invite the worst. The result is that we are becoming a nation of weaklings and hypochondriacs, a self-medicating society incapabel of distinguishing between casual, everyday symptoms and those that require professional attention. 在一所医学院校任教十二年来,我获得的主要印象是:当今美国头号的健康问题,甚至比爱滋病或癌症都更为严重的问题,就是美国人不知道如何去认识健康与疾病。我们的反应是建立在恐惧这个尺度之上的。我们怕最坏的事,期待着最坏的事,而恰恰就招来了最坏的事。结果,我们变成了一个一个虚弱的、自疑有病的国度,一个分不清哪些 是日常偶发症状、哪些又是需要医生医治的症状,而自己擅自用药的社会。 Somewhere in our early educatioin we become addicted to the notion that pain means sickness. We fail to learn that pain is the bodys way of informing the mind that we are doing something wrong, not necessarily that something is wrong. We dont understand that pain may be telling us that we are eating too much or the wrong things; or that we are smoking too much or drinking too much; or that there is too much emotional congestion in our lives; or that we are being worn down by having to cope daily with overcrowded streets and highways, the prounding noise of garbage grinders, or the cosmic distance between the entrance to the airport and the departure gate. We get the message of pain all wrong. Instead of addressing ourselves to the cause, we become pushovers for pills, driving the pain underground and inviting it to return with increased authority. 在我们早期教育的某个阶段,我们变 得对疼痛即疾病这一概念深信不疑。我们不知道,人体只是用疼痛这种方式通知大脑,我们的行为出了差错,而并—定是健康有间题。我们不明白,疼痛可能是在告威我们,或吃得太饱,或吃得不当,或吸烟太多,或饮酒过度,或生 活中感愔煎熬太苦,或因每天都得面对拥挤的大街和公路、忍受垃圾粉碎机的撞击声和奔波于从机场入口到登机 □之间的长距离而被搞得过分疲劳。我们把疼痛传达的信息全搞错了。我们不去探査其缘由,却大服其药,把疼痛 压下去,从而招致它以更大的威力再次发作。 Early in life, too, we