Three men in a boat (medical vocabulary, level B2+)

Step 1

Have you ever watched a medical drama, eg. House, ER, Grey's Anatomy etc? Which one is your favourite?

Step 2

In three minutes make a list of all the diseases that you can remember.

Step 3

Read the text and add some diseases mentioned by the author to your list.

There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.  We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

(...)

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was.  I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally.  I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages.  I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight.  Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years.  Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with.  I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

(...)

I went to my medical man.  He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now.  “What a doctor wants,” I said, “is practice.  He shall have me.  He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each.”  So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:

“Well, what’s the matter with you?”

I said:

“I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me.  Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished.  But I will tell you what is not the matter with me.  I have not got housemaid’s knee.  Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it.  Everything else, however, I have got.”

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it—a cowardly thing to do, I call it—and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head.  After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out. I did not open it.  I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in.  The man read it, and then handed it back.He said he didn’t keep it.

I said:

“You are a chemist?”

He said:

“I am a chemist.  If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you.  Being only a chemist hampers me.”

I read the prescription.  It ran:

“1 lb. beefsteak, with
1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.”

Step 4
Choose the correct answers.

1. How did the author come to know about his health problems?

 a). by reading a book

 b). from the museum exposition

 c). from his friends

 d). from his doctor

2. What was really the matter with the author?

 a). he had a 'housemaid's knee'

 b). he had a variety of diseases

 c). nothing

 d). cholera and diphtheria

3. What can we say about the doctor?

 a). he had a lot of experience

 b). he didn't treat his friend's health problems seriously

 c). he had a sense of humour

 d). he was angry with his friend

4. The book is most likely a:

 a). drama

 b). comedy

 c). children's book

 d). biography

Answers:

1. a 2. c 3. c 4. b

Step 5

Match the words in bold from the text to their definitions.

1.two weeks 2. gripped 3. thought 4. afraid 5. help 6. short 7. friend 8. desperation 

9. makes difficult 10. examine very closely 11. everyday 12. ache 13. slowly 14. serious

Answers:

1. fortnight 2. clutched 3. wondered 4. fearful 5. oblige 6. brief 7. chum 8. despair 9. hampers 10. sift 11. ordinary 12. ailment 13. idly 14. severe

Step 6

Complete the sentences with one of the words in bold from the text in the correct form.

1. Last night, driving home, I saw a ____________-looking accident.

2. I ____________ if I'm ever gonna get used to my job.

3. Write a report for tomorrow, please. And make it ____________.

4. I ____________ through the trash but I couldn't find the lipstick I accidentally threw out.

5. Could you ____________ me by carrying my bag?

6. It was a perfect afternoon. We strolled ____________ and talked.

Answers:

1. severe 2. wonder 3. brief 4. sifted 5. oblige 6. idly