In most systems of medicine, the healer artfully evokes the patient’s powers

游客2023-07-24  25

问题     In most systems of medicine, the healer artfully evokes the patient’s powers of self-suggestion, which are responsible for whatever healing may occur. This mysterious gift of self-healing is cloaked with an anodyne(止痛的) label, the "placebo effect", and recognized only as a nuisance likely to confound clinical trials. But the placebo ( Latin for "I will please" ) and its shadowy twin the nocebo ( "I will harm" ) are much more than methodological problems: they lie at the heart of every interaction between doctor and patient.
    How they work no one knows. But the brain rules the body in many subconscious ways, including its control of the body’s major hormones and its subtle influence over the immune system. So it’s possible that, in ways yet unknown, expectations about health or disease are sometimes translated in to a bodily reaction that fulfils them. The power of these effects is hard to overstate.
    A rule of thumb is that 30 percent of patients in the placebo half of a drug trial ( i. e. those who unknowingly receive a dummy pill instead of the real thing) will experience all improvement in symptoms. But the proportion may be much higher. Just like real drugs, placebo pills can produce stronger effects in larger doses. Patients will report greater relief when given a larger pill, or two dummy capsules instead of one.
    Doctors’ expectations also contribute to the awesome power of the placebo effect. In a study of tooth extraction, patients were given either a painkiller or sham drugs. Some dentists were assigned to give either drug, without knowing which, but other dentists knew they would be giving only sham drugs. The patients whose dentists thought they had at least a 50-50 chance of giving a painkiller suffered significantly less pain.  Presumably, doctors transmit their expectations to the patient through subtle cues, often without knowing they are doing so. [br] The study of doctors’ expectations shows that ______.

选项 A、doctors are sometimes not clear about what drugs to give the patients
B、most dentists have a 50-50 chance of curing patients
C、doctors’ expectations play a big part in curing patients
D、dentists always know it when sham drugs are given

答案 C

解析 第四段第一句就点明了该实验的结果doctors’expectations also contribute to the awesome power of the placebo effect,然后第四句具体说有50%可能性给病人止痛药的牙医,其病人的疼痛感小了很多,这说明如果医生期望病人没有疼痛,病人就有可能感觉疼痛减轻,C)是对该意思的归纳。A)是对文章最后一句的曲解,该句是说医生将自己的期望传达给病人,且经常是无意识的,即不知道自己正在这样做,并不是说医生有时不知该给病人吃什么药,排除A);第四句中的50-50可能性是指医生给病人止疼片的几率是50-50,而不是说医生治好病人的几率是50%,排除B);第四段第三句说Some dentists were assigned to give either drug,without knowing which,即有些牙医要给病人两种药物中的任意一种,且不知道他给的是哪一种,这说明有时牙医给出的是sham drug,但自己却不知道,排除D)。
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