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  3. Because early man viewed illness as divine punishment and healing as purifica

Because early man viewed illness as divine punishment and healing as purifica

游客2023-12-31  22
问题    Because early man viewed illness as divine punishment and healing as purification, medicine and religion were inextricably linked for centuries. This notion is apparent in the origin of our word "pharmacy, " which comes from the Greek pharmakon, meaning "purification through purging."
   By 3500 B.C., the Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley had developed virtually all of our modern methods of administering drugs. They used gargles, inhalations, pills, lotions, ointments, and plasters. The first drug catalog, or pharmacopoeia, was written at that time by an unknown Sumerian physician. Preserved in cuneiform script on a single clay tablet are the names of dozens of drugs to treat ailments that still afflict us today.
   The Egyptians added to the ancient medicine chest. The Ebers papyrus, a scroll dating from the 1900 B.C. and named after the German Egyptologist George Ebers, reveals the trial-and-error know-how acquired by early Egyptian physicians. To relieve indigestion, a chew of peppermint leaves and carbonates (known today as antacids) was prescribed, and to numb the pain of tooth extraction, Egyptian doctors temporarily stupefied a patient with ethyl alcohol. The scroll also provides a rare glimpse into the hierarchy of ancient drug preparation. The "chief of the preparers of drugs" was the equivalent of a head pharmacist, who supervised the "collectors of drugs, " field workers who gathered essential minerals and herbs. The "preparers’ aides, " (technicians) dried and pulverized ingredients, which were blended according to certain formulas by the "preparers." And the "conservator of drugs" oversaw the storehouse where local and imported mineral, herb and animal-organ ingredients were kept.
   By the 7th century B.C., the Greeks had adopted a sophisticated mind-body view of medicine. They believed the physician must pursue the diagnosis and treatment of the physical (body) causes of disease within a scientific framework, as well as cure the supernatural (mind) components involved. Thus, the early Greek physician emphasized something of a holistic approach to health, even if the suspected "mental" causes of disease were not recognized as stress and depression, but interpreted as curses from displeased deities.
   The modern era of pharmacology began in the 16th century, ushered in by the first major discoveries in chemistry. The understanding of how chemicals interact to produce certain effects within the body would eventually remove much of the guesswork and magic from medicine. Drugs had been launched on a scientific course, but centuries would pass before superstition was displaced by scientific fact. One major reason was that physicians, unaware of the existence of disease-causing pathogens, continued to dream up imaginary causative evils. And though new chemical compounds emerged, their effectiveness in treating disease was still based largely on trial and error. Many standard, common drugs in the medicine chest were developed in this trial-and-error environment. Such is the complexity of disease and human biochemistry that even today, despite enormous strides in medical science, many of the latest sophisticated additions to our medicine chest shelves were accidental finds. [br] What does the word "pathogens" underlined in Paragraph 5 mean?
选项 A、Disorders.
B、Viruses.
C、Antibiotics.
D、Injections.
答案 B
解析    词义界定。医学词汇对于普通读者而言都比较陌生。要猜测pathogen的词义，有两个方法：构词规律和语境。从构词来看，前缀patho-意思是疾病，后缀-gen意思是出生，生殖。前后缀合起来的意思是生病的根源，即病原体，病菌。如果读者不懂得这种构词猜词法，还可以依赖语境。本段第二句提到现代医学之所以发达是因为了解了化学药品(俗称西药)在体内产生的效果，而这样的发现经过数个世纪，换言之，以前的医生不懂得致病的(disease-causing)真正根源(pathogens)。四个选项中，只有B(病毒)符合语境意义，因此是正确选项。
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