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5. Which of these things can be sharp?

a) a knife b) a cold c) pain d) an illness

6. Which of these things can be heavy?

a) a lag b) a cold c) a smoker d) an illness

7. Which of these two things people usually think of as more serious?

a) an illness b) a disease

Ex. 8. Transform the sentences as in the model.

Model: I want to have my temperature taken. – I want the doctor to take my temperature.

1. I want to have my pulse felt. 2. I want to have my tooth filled. 3. I want to have my tooth pulled out. 4. I want to have my blood-count taken. 5. I want to have my lungs X-rayed. 6. I want to have a prescription made out. 7. I want to have the medicine prescribed.

Ex. 9. Match the problem and its solution.

Ex. 10. What medical problems might you have if…

1. You wear shoes that rub (натирают)?

2. You eat too fast?

3. You smoke a lot?

4. You stay too long in the sun?

5. You eat food that is bad?

6. You get wet on a cold day?

7. You think you’re ill all the time?

Ex. 11.What are the symptoms of these diseases?

sun-stroke food poisoning pneumonia

[nju`mounj]

flu quinsy

Ex.12.Read and decide which responses should follow the patient’s question.

Ex. 13.Put the sentences in the right order to make the story of some short illness.

1. The following morning I still didn’t feel any better, so I went down to the surgery.

2. When I woke up on Tuesday I felt sick and dizzy.

3. It cleared up the sore throat very quickly.

4. I was shivering one minute and sweating the next.

5. I started feeling ill on Monday evening. I had a bit of a temperature, so I took an aspirin and had an early night.

6. When I was at the doctor I explained my symptoms.

7. I took the prescription to the chemist, where I got an antibiotic.

8. He examined me, and said I had the flu and a sore throat.

9. I took things easy, and by the weekend I had completely recovered.

10. He gave me a prescription for the sore throat, and said that I should go to bed for a few days.

11. I had some toast, but I was sick immediately, so I went back to bed. I had a fever.

Ex. 14.a) Read the text and mark unknown words and some medical words and word combinations.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment. I got down the book and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves and began to study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first, and before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms”, I was sure that I had got it.

I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then in despair I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever – began to get interested in my case, and so started alphabetically.

Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I looked through the twenty-six letters, and the only disease I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

I sat and thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view. Students would have no need to “walk the hospitals” if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I couldn’t at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head but I could not feel or heat anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far ever it would go, and I shut one eye and tried to examine it with the other. I could only see the tip, but I felt more certain that before that I had scarlet fever.

I had walked into the reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a miserable wreck.

I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill. So I went up and saw him, and he said:

“Well, what’s the matter with you?”

I said:

“I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is short and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. Everything else, however, I have got”.

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me, and took hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it – a cowardly thing to do, I call it. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.

I did not open it, I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back. He sad he didn’t keep it.

I said: ”You are a chemist?”

He said: “I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you.”

I read the prescription. It ran:

“ lb¹ beefsteak, with

pt² bitter beer

every six hours.

ten-mile walk every morning.

bed at 11 sharp every night.

And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand”.

I followed the directions with the happy result that my life was preserved.

b) Note down as many diseases the author had as possible.

c) What do the following words and expressions mean?

premonitory symptoms, to time the pulse, miserable wreck, to stuff up the head?

d) Give a brief-summary of the text in the third person singular.

e) What is the name of the disease which the author was really suffering?

Ex. 15. a) Read the text and say what George does not to get older and not to rust. What are the secrets of his long life?

“How to live to be 100 or more”

By George Burns

People keep asking me, “George, you’re 88, how do you do it? You make films, you do television, you give concerts, you record albums, smoke cigars, drink Martinis, go out with pretty girls – how do you do it? It’s simple. Today you don’t have to worry about getting old; you have to worry about rusting. So I do exercises and walk a lot. Every morning I walk a mile and a half. My advice is to walk whenever you can. It’s free; you feel better and look trim. If you want to live to be 100 or older, you can’t just sit around waiting for it to happen. You have to get up and go after it. Here are my secrets for long life:

Think positive. Avoid worry, stress, and tension. Worry, stress, and tension are not only unpleasant but can shorten your life. My attitude is, if something is beyond your control, there’s no point worrying about it. And if you can do something about it, then there’s still nothing to worry about. I feel that way when the plane I’m on is bouncing around in turbulence. It’s not my problem. The pilot gets a lot of money to fly that plane; let him worry about it.

Stay active. I know that for some people retirement works out fine. They enjoy it. I also know that for a great many others it presents lots of problems.

To me the biggest danger of retirement is what it can do to your attitude. When you have all that time on your hands, you think old, you act old. It’s a mistake. I see people, who, the minute they get to be 65, start rehearsing to be old. They practise grunting when they get up, and by the time they get to be 70 they’ve made it – there a hit – the are now old!

Not me. When you’re around my age you’ve got to keep occupied. You’ve got to do something that will get you out of bed. I never made any money in bed. Yes, find something that will make you get out of bed like an interest, a hobby, a business, a pretty girl – there we are, back in bed again. At my age at least let me talk about it.

Challenge yourself. When my wife Gracie retired in 1958, I could have retired too. even today I don’t have to do what I’m doing. I don’t have to travel round giving concerts, making movies, doing television specials, recording country-music albums, being a sex symbol. I firmly believe that you should keep working as long as you can. And if you can’t, try to find something that will interest you. Don’t wait for it to happen; make it happen. Remember, you can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.

There’s an old saying, “Life begins at 40.” That’s silly – life begins every morning when you wake up. Open your mind to it; don’t just sit there – do things. Swim the English Channel; find a cure for the common cold; be the first to go over the Niagara Falls in a rocking chair. You see, the possibilities are endless. The point is, with a good positive attitude and a little bit of luck, there’s no reason you can’t live to be 100. Once you’ve done that you’ve really got in made, because very few people die over 100”.

b) Answer the following questions:

1. Why is it important to take care of your health?

2. Do you take care of your health?

3. How do you keep fit?

4. Are eating habits important to get fit?

5. Does smoking contributes to good health?

6. What bad habits make our life shorter?

c) How healthy are you?

Choose one the alternatives given.

SCORE

Give 3 marks for every “a”, 2 marks for every “b”, and 1 mark for every “c”.

Then refer to the key to find out how healthy you are!