新编大学英语UNIT4-1研讨.ppt

8 The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases. It helps such things as seasickness, coughs, colds, and even pain after an operation. And there was an experiment done to see if a placebo could help old people stay healthy and live longer. 9 The test was done in Romania with 150 people over the age of 60. They were put in three groups with 50 people in each group. The first group were given nothing at all. The second group were given a placebo. The third group were given a real drug and told that it would help with the problems of old age. (In fact, it was not a drug for old age at all.) The three groups were studied for many years. The first group showed no changes from the way old people in that village had always been. The second group (with the placebo) had much better health and a lower death rate. The third group (with the real drug) showed much the same results as the group that took the placebo. 10 A placebo can also have bad effects. If patients expect a bad reaction to medicine, then they will also show a bad reaction to the placebo. This would seem to show that a lot of how you react to medicine is in your mind rather than in your body. Some doctors still think that if the placebo can have bad effects it should never be used. They think there is still not enough known about it. 11 And yet, the use of the placebo has been well known for hundreds of years in other countries. Tribal doctors in some African countries have known for a long time that patients will get better if they think they are going to. Many of the treatments they use do not seem able to make a sick person better, and yet such treatments work. 12 The strange power of the placebo does seem to suggest that the human mind is stronger than we think it is. There are people who say you can heal your body by using your mind. And the interesting thing is that even people who swear this is not possible have been healed by a placebo. * UNIT 4 Who are you? What are you like? Use o