Subject: English
Topic: Note-Making and Summary Class: XI
Name: Sec: Roll No: Date:
1. Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living. The making and selling of
drugs have a long history and is closely linked, like medical practice itself, with belief in magic.
Only during the last hundred years or so has the development of scientific techniques made
diagnosis possible. The doctor is now able to follow up the correct diagnosis of many illnesses-
with specific treatment of their cause. In many other illnesses of which the causes remain
unknown, he is still limited, like the unqualified prescriber, to the treatment of symptoms. The
doctor is trained to decide when to treat symptoms only and when to attack the cause. This is the
essential difference between medical prescribing and self-medication.
2. The advance of technology has brought about much progress in some fields of medicine,
including the development of scientific drug therapy. In many countries public health organisation
is improving, and peoples’ nutritional standards have risen. Parallel with such beneficial trends
are two which have an adverse effect. One is the use of high-pressure advertising by the
pharmaceutical industry which has tended to influence both patients and doctors and has led to
the overuse of drugs generally. The other is the emergence of sedentary society with its faulty
ways of living: lack of exercise, overeating, unsuitable eating, insufficient sleep, excessive
smoking and drinking. People with disorders arising from faulty habits such as these, as well as
from unhappy human relationships, often resort to self-medication. Advertisers go to great
lengths to catch this market.
3. Clever advertising aimed at chronic sufferers; who will try anything because doctors have not
been able to cure them; can induce faith in a medicine, particularly if it is steeply priced.
Advertisements are also aimed at people suffering from mild complaints such as simple colds
and coughs which advertisements claim will clear up within a short time due to the intake of a
medicinal product.
4. These are the main reasons why laxatives, indigestion-remedies, pain killers, cough mixtures,
tonics, vitamins and iron tablets, nose drops, ointments and many other preparations are found in
quantity in many households. It is doubtful whether taking these things even improves a person’s
health or it simply makes it worse. Worse, because the preparation may contain unsuitable
ingredients making a person dependent on them. They may also cause poisoning and worst of all
the symptoms of an underlying problem may be masked and therefore medical help may be
sought. Self-diagnosis is a greater danger than self-medication.
a) On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make notes using headings and
sub-headings. Use recognisable abbreviations, wherever necessary (minimum 4). Use a
format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to the set of notes. (5)
b) Write a summary of the passage (in about 80 words). (3)
Self-Medication- A Growing Trend
1. Self-Medication and Medical Prescription
1.1. Occasional self-medication practiced in past
1.2. Medical diagnosis recent-100 yrs.1 approx.2
1.3. Difference between a prescribed medicine and self-medication
1.3.1. Doc. 3 trained – knows when to treat symptoms & when to treat cause.
1.3.2. Indiv.4 doing self-medication ignorant abt.5 above.
2. Growth in Technology- Benefits and Adverse Effects
2.1. Improvement in medicines, public health systems, nutritional stds.6
2.2. Sedentary society: lack of exercise, overeating, unsuitable eating, insufficient
sleep, excessive smoking and drinking.
2.3. Self Medication-Ppl.7 with lifestyle disorders or relationship prblms8 target of
advertisers.
3. Types of Self Medication & Effects
3.1. Laxatives, indigestion-remedies, pain killers, cough –mixtures, tonics, vitamins
and iron tablets, nose drops, ointments etc b) Can worsen prblm.
3.1.1. Unsuitable ingredients
3.1.2. Medicine may mask real cause
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
1. Yrs - years
2. Approx. - Approximately
3. Doc. - Doctor
4. Indiv. - Individual
5. Abt. - About
6. Stds. – Standards
7. Ppl. - People
8. Prblms. - Problems
SUMMARY
Advancements in diagnostic techniques and improvement in medicines and public health
systems are accompanied by harmful effects. Technological advancement promotes a sedentary
lifestyle with lack of exercise, over-eating, eating wrong foods, insufficient sleep, excessive
drinking and smoking. This leads to rise in disorders, self-medication and relationship problems.
Further advertising promotes self-medication when doctors cannot find cures. Easy cough, cold
indigestion medicines promising quick Reading Passage for Note Making and Summary Writing.
A Sample recovery attract consumers. However, self-medication might mask the real problem
and unsuitable ingredients might harm.