[al:新概念英语（四）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:Patients and Doctors] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.50]Lesson 28 [00:03.32]Patients and doctors [00:12.11]What are patients looking for when they visit the doctor? [00:18.10]This is a sceptical age, [00:20.52]but although our faith in many of the things [00:22.84]in which our forefathers fervently believed has weakened, [00:27.10]our confidence in the curative properties of the bottle of medicine remains the same as theirs. [00:33.83]This modern faith in medicines is proved by the fact [00:37.40]that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is mounting to astronomical figures. [00:43.38]and shows no signs at present of ceasing to rise. [00:47.98]The majority of the patients [00:49.73]attending the medical out-patients departments of our hospitals feel that [00:54.12]they have not received adequate treatment unless they are able to carry home with them [00:59.60]some tangible remedy in the shape of a bottle of medicine, [01:04.01]a box of pills, or a small jar of ointment, [01:07.88]and the doctor in charge of the department is only too ready to provide them with these requirements. [01:14.27]There is no quicker method of disposing of patients [01:17.27]than by giving them what they are asking for, [01:20.69]and since most medical men in the Health Services are overworked [01:25.35]and have little time for offering time-consuming [01:28.42]and little-appreciated advice on such subjects as diet, [01:32.85]right living, and the need for abandoning bad habits etc., [01:38.07]the bottle, the box, and the jar are almost always granted them. [01:44.07]Nor is it only the ignorant and ill-educated person [01:47.91]who has such faith in the bottle of medicine. [01:51.36]It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle [01:53.77]that when he heard of the illness of his friend, Henry Taylor, [01:57.80]he went off immediately to visit him, [02:00.66]carrying with him in his pocket what remained a bottle of medicine [02:05.05]formerly prescribed for an indisposition of Mrs. Carlyle's. [02:10.20]Carlyle was entirely ignorant of what the bottle in his pocket contained, [02:15.39]of the nature of the illness from which his friend was suffering, [02:18.92]and of what had previously been wrong with his wife, [02:22.30]but a medicine that had worked so well in one form of illness [02:26.34]would surely be of equal benefit in another, [02:29.73]and comforted by the thought of the help he was bringing to his friend, [02:33.74]he hastened to Henry Taylor's house. [02:36.91]History does not relate whether his friend accepted his medical help, [02:41.77]but in all probability he did. [02:45.20]The great advantage of taking medicine is that it makes no demands on the taker [02:50.11]beyond that of putting up for a moment with a disgusting taste, [02:54.77]and that is what all patients demand of their doctors--to be cured at no inconvenience to themselves.