0910G[North America Flying] Argument51by whyyolanda

whyyolandaUID: 2626438

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."


This article concludes that all patients who are diagonosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment, since doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. To support this conclusion, the arthor gives up a preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. This statement seems reasonable at first glance, but I’m afraid it can’t bear further consideration since there are several flaws in it.
To start with, this conclusion depends on the assumption that the patients with muscle strain are surely going to get secondary infection. The antibiotics are the medicine dealing with infection and are used to protect patients from it. In this statement, the author doesn't give us any statistics about how easily the patients with muscle strain would get secondary infection and the percentage of the probability. So the whole deduction are based on a queried foundation.
Secondly, the author doesn't give us a convincing proof that it is the antibiotics that reduced the recuperation time. On the on hand, we don't know the details of the patients, including their ages, genders, and physical conditions. Maybe in the first group, most of the patients are strong and young males, who are naturely easy and quickly to recover from muscle strain, While most of the patients of the other group are weaker. That will certainly has an effect on the result. On the other hand, we don’t if the difference of the two doctors resulted in the diversity. Dr. Newland of the 1st group is a doctor who specializes in sports medicine while the doctor of the 2nd group is Dr. Alton, a general physician. It is posible that Dr. Newland have his unique and effective method dealing with muscle strain better than Dr, Alton besides the antibiotics.
Thirdly, the argueor doesn’t give us any information if the sugar pill would do something in healing. The patients of the 2nd group were given sugar pills without noticing this and the 1st group didn’t have sugar pills. However, the author doesn’t tell more about the differences, such as if the sugar pill would reduce the time of recoverty. We doubt wether it’s the sugar pills that are responsible to this result.
To sum up, The statement of the argueor doesn't hold water, it needs more detailed information to bolster the conclusion. The posibility of getting secondery infection are essential and the differences of the patients of the two goups are necessary. What’s more, the author had better give us the medical statistics of the affect of sugar pills to muscle strains.