[1010G] argu51 For One Reason作文7.21 by流氓高手

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Argument51

The following appeared in a medical newsletter. “Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment. "

Depending on a current study with two separate groups of patient with muscle strain, supporting that secondary infections may impede patient with muscle strain from recovering quickly, and then synthesizing the hypothesis that all the patients with muscle strain would suffer from secondary infection, the author accordingly suggests that all the patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain should take antibiotics. Careful scrutiny of the process of the argumentation, however, reveals that it leads little credible support to the author’s conclusion.

First of all, to draw this statement, the author makes an assumption that all the muscle strain patients would have the symptom of secondary infection. However, the author fails to provide any believable information to testify his assumption. Lacking such information to support it, we can’t simply equate patients with muscle with patients with secondary infections, therefore we also can’t draw the statement that patient with muscle strain should take antibiotics depending on the false assumption.

Secondly, even if most muscle strain patient would have secondary infection, the author rashly draw the assertion that all the patients should take antibiotics without considering the side-effect of the antibiotics. Common sense tell us kind of medicine would have some injurious effect to some patients, and not all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain are suitable to taking antibiotics. Some side-effect of the antibiotics, such as allergies, may cause some negative outcome to the recovering of the muscle strain. Meanwhile, some special patient, such as old man and pregnant women, may also be inappropriate, or even be dangerous to taking the antibiotics. Without offer more concrete information about the antibiotics and its effect, we can’t easily convince the author’s assertion about the antibiotics.

Last but not the least, one important problem lies on the study itself. To substantiate the positive effect of the antibiotics on the muscle strain, the study gather two groups of patients with muscle strain. One group, treated by a professional sport doctor, took antibiotics throughout the treatment, another group, treated by a general physician, was given sugar pill. The result of the study sounds convincingly, but it has two inevitable points which make the result unreasonable. On the one hand, the author does not inform us about the information of the patients in the two groups, such as the severity of injuries, the physical conditions and their habit of life. Perhaps it is the better habit of life of the patients, such as no smoking and more exercise, no the antibiotics, that leads to the first group patients to heal faster. On the other hand, the two different doctors in these two groups may also result in the outcome of the study unjustified. Because the doctor in the first group, which specialize in sport medicine, may has more professional and effective treatment on muscle problem which leads to the patient to recover quickly. In a word, lacking these informations, the author’s study result about the effect of antibiotics to the muscle strain is no justified and should not be cite to support his conclusion.

In sum,this argument is not persuasive as it stands. To make it more convincing, the author must provide more information about the patients, such as age, sex, physician condition. To better evaluate the argument, we would also need more firm evidence about the relationship between the muscle strain and the secondary infection,