Argument51 【Persistence 小组】第六次作业

欣馨之火UID: 2183210

51. 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."


In this argument recommends that all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain should take antibiotics as part of their treatment. To justify this recommendation, the author cites a preliminary proved hypothesis that secondary infections may prevent some patients from healing quickly after several muscle strains and shows some details and results of a study of two groups of patients. Close scrutiny of the hypothesis and the study which are mentioned in this argument, however, reveals that there are several vital flaws which render the recommendation unsubstantiated as it stands.

First of all, no evidence supports that all muscle strain patients will, or at a high possibility to, get secondary infections. It is entirely possible that some patients whose muscle was injured will never be infected again, for that matter, giving antibiotics them during the treatment is questionable.

Secondly, as for the study that the argument cites, there are two groups of patients took part in it; however, no information about the similarities of the two groups of patient. If the average age of the first group is considerably small than the other one, or if the average degree of the muscle injuries of the first group is slighter, then it cannot be proved that it is antibiotics, not some other reasons, causes the difference of the recuperation time.

Thirdly, the two groups of patients are treated by different doctors. It is most probably that Dr. Newland, who specializes in sports medicine, is better than a general physician when it comes to the muscle injuries. Therefore, the phenomena that the average recuperation time of the first group patients is 40 percent quicker than typically expected does not indicate that antibiotic is highly effective.

Moreover, some sugar pills which are not convinced that whether it will do harm to the healing of the group whose average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Perhaps the pills have press some side effects on the participant patients, and thus their recuperation time is longer than the other group's. Hence, it is unjustified that the reason why the recuperation is slow is not using antibiotics. As the several points I have mentioned above, the efficiency of antibiotics during the treatment of muscle strain is not proven.

In sum, the author fails to convince me that take antibiotics as part of the muscle strain treatment is a good advice. To bolster the recommendation, the author should show the statistic data to justify the probability of secondary infections during the muscle strain patients, and should give more results of some other studies which conducted on same condition to prove the efficiency of antibiotics.

iamstoicUID: 2294314

BBS不支持word的部分功能,所以还是用word发给你吧

[ 本帖最后由 iamstoic 于 2007-2-8 15:57 编辑 ]