Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living. The making and selling of

drugs has a long history and is closely linked, like medical practice itself, with belief in magic. Only during the last hundred years or so has the development of scientific techniques made it possible for some of the causes of symptoms to be understood; so that more accurate diagnosis has become possible. The doctor is now able to follow up the correct diagnosis of many illnesses with specific treatment of their causes. In many other illnesses, of which the causes remain unknown, he is still limited, like an unqualified prescriber, to the treatment of symptoms. The doctor is trained to decide when to treat symptoms only and when to attack the cause: this is the essential difference between medical prescribing(开处方) and self-medication.

The advance of technology has brought about much progress in some fields of medicine, including the development of scientific drug therapy(疗法). In many countries public health organization is improving, and people’s nutritional standards have risen. Parallel with such beneficial trends are two which have bad effects. One is the use of high pressure advertising by the pharmaceutical(制药的) industry, which has tended to influence both patients and doctors and has led to the over-use of drugs generally. The other is the emergence of the sedentary(静止的) society with its faulty ways of life: lack of exercise, over-eating, unsuitable eating, insufficient sleep, too much smoking and drinking. People with disorders arising from faulty habits such as these, as well as from unhappy human relationships, often resort(采取) to self-medication and so add the taking of pharmaceuticals to the list. Advertisers go to great lengths to catch this market.

1．Which of the following is nearest in meaning to “symptom”?

       A．The cause of an illness.

       B．Any kind of drug.

       C．A change in the body indicating an illness,.

       D．The pain produced by any kind of illness.

2．Which of the following is TRUE?

       A．Today the causes of all symptoms are understood.

       B．Today accurate diagnosis of all illnesses is possible

       C．When doctors do not understand the cause of an illness, they treat the symptoms.

       D．Doctors never treat symptoms unless they understand the causes of an illness.

3．How many “beneficial trends” are actually mentioned?

       A．Two                   B．Three                  C．Four                   D．Five

4．By “People’s nutritional standards have risen” the writer means that people _________.

       A．are eating better food                           B．are eating less food

       C．are eating more food       D．are healthier than before