Norman Cousins/诺曼·克森斯
The main impression growing out of twelve years on the faculty of a medical school is that theNo.1 health problem in the U.S. today, even more than AIDS or cancer, is that Americans don'tknow how to think about health and illness. Our reactions are formed on the terror level. Wefear the worst, expect the worst, thus invite the worst. The result is that we are becoming anation of weaklings and hypochondriacs, a self-medicating society incapabel of distinguishingbetween casual, everyday symptoms and those that require professional attention.
Somewhere in our early educatioin we become addicted to the notion that pain means sickness.We fail to learn that pain is the body's way of informing the mind that we are doing somethingwrong, not necessarily that something is wrong. We don't understand that pain may be tellingus that we are eating too much or the wrong things; or that we are smoking too much ordrinking too much; or that there is too much emotional congestion in our lives; or that we arebeing worn down by having to cope daily with overcrowded streets and highways, theprounding noise of garbage grinders, or the cosmic distance between the entrance to theairport and the departure gate. We get the message of pain all wrong. Instead of addressingourselves to the cause, we become pushovers for pills, driving the pain underground andinviting it to return with increased authority.
在一所医学院校任教十二年来,我获得的主要印象是:当今美国头号的健康问题，甚至比爱滋病或癌症都更为严重的问题，就是美国人不知道如何去认识健康与疾病。我们的反应是建立在恐惧这个尺度之上的。我们怕最坏的事,期待着最坏的事,而恰恰就招来了最坏的事。结果,我们变成了一个一个虚弱的、自疑有病的国度,一个分不清哪些 是日常偶发症状、哪些又是需要医生医治的症状,而自己擅自用药的社会。
在我们早期教育的某个阶段,我们变 得对疼痛即疾病这一概念深信不疑。我们不知道,人体只是用疼痛这种方式通知大脑,我们的行为出了差错,而并—定是健康有间题。我们不明白,疼痛可能是在告威我们,或吃得太饱,或吃得不当,或吸烟太多,或饮酒过度,或生 活中感愔煎熬太苦,或因每天都得面对拥挤的大街和公路、忍受垃圾粉碎机的撞击声和奔波于从机场入口到登机之间的长距离而被搞得过分疲劳。我们把疼痛传达的信息全搞错了。我们不去探査其缘由,却大服其药,把疼痛 压下去,从而招致它以更大的威力再次发作。
Early in life, too, we become seized with the bizarre idea that we are constantly assaulted byinvisible monsters called germs, and that we have to be on constant alert to protectourselves against their fury. Equal emphasis, however, is not given to the presiding fact thatour bodies are forestalling an attack is to maintain a sensible life-style.
The most signficant single statement about health to appear in the medical journals during thepast decade is by Dr. Franz Ingelfinger, the late and former editor of the New England Journalof Medicine. Ingelfinger noted that almost all illnesses are self-limiting. That is, the human bodyis capable of handling them without outside intervention. The thrust of the article was thatwe need not feel we are helpless if disease tries to tear away at our bodies, and that we canhave greater confidence in the reality of a healing system that is beautifully designed to meetof its problems. And even when ourside help is required, our own resources have something ofvalue to offer in a combined strategy of treatment.
我们在少年时代就种下了一种奇怪的观念:一种肉眼看不见的叫做 细菌的小妖怪在不断向我们进玟,我们必须常备不懈地保护自己不受其伤害。然而，我们对另一个重要事实却未能给予同样的重视，那就是，我们的身体装备精良，足以对付这些小妖怪，而且防止妖怪进攻的最佳途径就是保持合理的生活方式。
《新英格兰医学杂志》前主编(已故)弗朗兹·英杰芬格博士的文章,是过去十年中医学刊物上发表的有关健康的最重要论述,他指出，几乎所有的疾病本身都有一定的极限。也就是说，人体可在没有外来干预的情况下对付这些疾患。这篇文章雄辩地指出，受到疾病攻击时，我们无需感到无助，而且对下述事实应抱有更充分的信心：人体的康复机制十分精妙，足以应付大部分疾病。即使在需要外援的情况下,我们的肌体本身也能对治疗进行有力的合作。
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