IMorc Reading

1. Read the text and answer the questions.

1. What is homoeopathy?

2. When was homoeopathy discovered?

3. Who was the discoverer of homoeopathy?

4. How are homoeopathic medicines prescribed?

Homoeopathy

Homoeopathy is a system of medicine whose principles are ever older than Hippocrates. It seeks to cure in accordance with natural laws of healing and uses medicines made from natural substances: animal, vegetable, and mineral.

Homoeopathy was “discovered” in the early 1800s by a German physician, Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann. Shortly after set­ting up practice, he became disillusioned with medicine, and with good reason. Eighteenth and nineteenth century physicians believed that sickness was caused by humours, or fluids, that had to be expelled from the body by every possible means. To achieve this, patients were cauterized, blistered, purged, and bled. Hahnemann protested against these brutal and senseless methods, and his colleagues quickly de­nounced him for heresy. He was also opposed to the way doctors prescribed medicines.

Homoeopathy is a system of medicine that uses “natural” reme­dies made from animal, vegetable, and mineral substances. These remedies are prepared in such a way that they are non-toxic and do not cause side effects. And the remedies are available at a fraction of the cost of prescription and non-prescription drugs.

Homeopathic medicine is prescribed according to the law of simi­lar and age-old principle that recognizes the body’s ability to heal it­self. This is no newfangled approach to healing; homeopathy was founded in the early 1800s by a German physician and spread rapidly throughout Europe. It was extremely popular in many countries in the nineteenth century, and then declined with the usage of “wonder drugs” and other changes in the practice of medicine. The holistic movement that surfaced in the early 1970s in America advocates a return to natural laws of healing, and it has sparked a revival of inter­est in this scientific system of medicine.

Clinical evidence accumulated over more than 150 years of use demonstrates that homoeopathic medicine is the viable alternative to standard medicine.

\l j Read the text and answer the questions.

1. What is the origin of the term “placebo” and how is it related to

its use?

2. What is the placebo effect and how is it manifested?

3. How are placebos used in research?

4. What is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study? Why is it performed?

Placebo

In Latin, placebo means “I shall please”. In 1811, Quincy’s Lexi­con Medicum by Robert Hooper defined placebo as any medicine adapted more to please than benefit the patient. So, originally, the term placebo referred to a dummy medical treatment, a substance that has no specific pharmacological activity against the patient’s com­plaint given solely for the psychophysiological effects of the treat­ment.

A placebo looks like a real drug but in fact is made up of an inac­tive substance such as a starch or sugar. However, in some people it may produce the so-called placebo effect, that is actual changes for better or worse in their health. These may be brought about by sug­gestibility — people who have a positive opinion about drugs tend to respond to placebos and they observe the effects an actual medication would produce, but it is also thought that the placebo use may coin­cide with a spontaneous improvement or deterioration in their health. Some people, however, are so susceptible to placebos that they suffer from withdrawal symptoms when the placebo is discontinued.

Placebos are also used in clinical studies when a new drug is being developed. The participants are randomly divided into two groups. Half of the study subjects are treated with the new drug and half (a control group) are given a placebo. The placebo and the study drug look the same and neither the patients nor the investigators know who was treated with the drug and who received the placebo (a random­ized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study). When the study drug produces much better results than the placebo, it is considered an ef­fective medication.

|j3 jRead the text and answer the questions.

1. When are drugs dangerous to their users?

2. When did people begin to use addictive drugs?

3. In what way do the mood-changing drugs work?

4. Why is drug addiction dangerous?

Drug Abuse

Drugs are not always beneficial to their users. In the sense of treat­ing the cause or symptoms of an illness, some drugs have no beneficial use at all. People who use these drugs take them without medical ap­proval and for recreational, not medical, reasons. Often the conse­quences of recreational drug-taking are harmful both to the individu­als who abuse drugs and to the people around them.

In earlier years most of the people who abused drugs either had easy access to medicines or were impoverished people for whom drugs seemed to provide the only escape from a hopeless existence. In the 1950s more people of all classes and occupations began to use mood-changing drugs without medical supervision, and more kinds of mood-changing drugs became available through both legal and illegal channels.

Some mood-changing drugs induce relaxation or sleep. Others induce feelings of exhilaration. All affect the nervous system and all can cause emotional change. Research suggests that addictive drugs and drugs that are commonly abused increase levels of dopamine — an organic compound that inhibits the transmission of nerve impulses — in the brain.

The temporary sense of well-being that is produced by such drugs fades when the effects of the drug have worn off, and users are faced with the same problems that plagued them previously. They may then take another dose of the drug rather than endure the pain and trouble of dealing with the original problems. When this happens, the users are said to have acquired a psychological dependence on the drug. As a result, they may stop maturing.

In severe cases, drug addicts direct all their energies to getting more of the drug to which they are addicted. In less severe cases — par­ticularly dependence on such legal drugs as the nicotine in cigarettes and the caffeine in coffee — users simply make taking the drug part of their daily routines. In this case the inconvenience of dependence may be considered the personal problem of the users themselves.

Unit 20 DRUGS

TEXT 1

Cardiovascular Drugs { lj Learn the following words.

affect	[a'l'ekt]	впливати, уражати
alter	l/xlta]	змінювати
contract	[kon'trækt]	скорочувати
digitalis	[drttytælis]	дигіталіс, наперстянка
depress	[di "pres]	пригнічувати
vasodilator	[,veiz9udai'leito]	ліки, що розширюють кровоносні судини
relax	[ri'læks]	розслаблювати
vessel	j'vesl]	судина
flow	Iflou]	течія, потік
epinephrine	[,epi'nefrm]	адреналін
dilate	[dai'leit)	розширювати
glycoside	[xjlaiko'said]	глікозид
digitoxin	[,did3i'Dksm]	дигітоксин, серцевий глікозид
sympathomimetic	[,simpoOomi'metik]	симпатомімстичний (імітує дії імпульсів, які передаються в о л о к н а м и с и м п а т и ч н ої нервової системи)
diuretic	|,daijuo'retik]	діуретик, сечогінний засіб
anticoagulant	j'æntikdu 'ægjulont 1	а і гг и коа гуля нт (загіоб і гас зсіданню крові)
vasoconstrictor	[.veizouksn'stnkts]	вазоконстрикгор (судинозвужуюча речовина)
nitrite	1 naîtrait]	нітрит
nitroglycerin	[,naitr3u'glis3ri:n]	нітрогліцерин
quinidine	['kwint,di:nj	хінідин
chlorothiazide	[,kbr3'0aiazaid|	тіазидовий діуретик