Argment51[jet小组]第四次作业

cascadeUID: 2454141

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."


In this argument, by making a comparison of the first group, which was given antibiotic medicine and therefore a quicker average recuperation time, of the second group, which was substituted for sugar pills and therefore the recuperation time was not significantly reduced, the author concludes that all patients with muscle strain should be advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment. However, the author fails to consider several other possibilities which may also affect the average time of recuperation as follows:

First, though the experiment the author cites suggests that the reason why the average recuperation time of first group is reduced significantly is that the first group’s patients avoid second infections. However, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that in this experiment all patients suffered from second infections, because in the experiment the researchers did not check the blood sample of the patients, so without ruling out this factor ,the author cannot convince me on his conclusion.

Second, even though we admit the author’s assumption, we should not ignore another important factor-doctor. The doctor of the first group is Dr. Newland who specializes in sports medicine, while the doctor of the second group is Dr. Alton who is a general physician. It is possible that in the field of muscle strains Dr. Newland is more specialized than Dr Alton and therefore can offer the first group’s patients more effective treatment. For example, besides taking antibiotics, the patients of the first group may asked to take some special exercises which can help the muscle recovers more quicker and the patients of the second group did not do any exercises, so it caused the recuperation time of the first group appears shorter than the second group.

Last but not the least; the author fails to provide us the detail that whether the antibiotics have side-effect. As we known, many antibiotics may cause some unhealthy reaction after the patients taking it and some antibiotic such as penicillin even require the patients to have a skin test before using it; otherwise the patients may have their lives in danger. What’s more, even though the antibiotics have no side-effect, the patients who have muscle strain should not take antibiotics as part of the treatment unless their doctors suggest, because the virus has a strong ability of adapting to the environment. After encountering several times the same antibiotic, the antibiotic will no longer threat it again.

In sum, the author’s conclusion seems logical bases on the reason the author give. However, before the patients finally make a decision about whether to take antibiotics as part of treatment; they should consider all possible alternatives and the causes for increasing the average recuperation time of the first group.

[ 本帖最后由 cascade 于 2008-2-13 17:43 编辑 ]