Summary
I chose to do my summary over a piece called Collecting Symptoms. This piece was written by Jerome K. Jerome, who was an English writer and humorist. He begins the article talking about how he feels that his “liver is out of order” (Jerome 1). He was reading an advertisement for a certain type of medicine and on the advertisement are some symptoms. He notes that he feels all the symptoms in his liver. Next he goes on to say “I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form” (Jerome 1). He then implies that every time that he has read an advertisement with symptoms he begins to feel these symptoms and feels he has that ailment or disease.
Jerome then continues by telling a story of a day when he went to a British museum and was looking at disease and cures. He says that he was looking over a disease and saw the symptoms and felt like he had this disease because he had a few of the symptoms. He then goes on to articulate that “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” (Jerome 1). He does this with a almost all of the disease in the book that he was reading and then comes across a disease that he did not have according to the symptoms. He then says “I felt rather hurt about this at first…” (Jerome 1). Furthermore he declares that he must be some medical mystery and wondered how he had all these diseases and ailments.
The article goes on and talks about how Jerome tried to examine himself and figure out how much time he had to live. He then goes to his doctor and spills to the doctor what he feels is wrong with him. The doctor prescribes him some medicine and Jerome takes the prescription to a chemist. Upon looking at the prescription, Jerome realizes that he need not a chemist but needed some normal good food and good exercise to be the healthy man he wanted to be.
In conclusion, the article questions the mindset of healthy people and their healthy lifestyles. In order to have a healthy life one must have a healthy mindset and understand that they are in good shape. This article signifies the importance of good exercise and healthy eating habits to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Works Cited
Jerome, Jerome K. “Collecting Symptoms” Medicine. Laphams Quarterly. 1889. Web. 05 Sept. 20112011
Blake. This is awesome
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me a lot of the movie "The Switch" with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bates, where Jason Bate's character and the son both suffer from a disorder that gives them the idea that they have the illness that they read about on WebMD no matter how absurd the disease may be. It just goes to show how something written back then still relates to our society today. It sounded like an interesting article!
ReplyDeleteI have also experienced this same feeling that Jerome K. Jerome feels about reading off a list of symptoms and thinking that you have this disease/sickness. I think that most diseases could show up on a large amount of people if it were based solely off of symptoms. There are so many different diseases nowadays that it is too hard to differentiate what is a symptom of a disease, from just a lack of good nutrition and exercise.
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