The technology is great. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to put a man on the moon, explore the ocean’s depths or eat microwave sausages. Computers have revolutionized our lives and they have the power to educate and pass on knowledge. But sometimes this power can create more problems than it solves.
技术很伟大。没有它，我们就不可能把人送上月球，探索海洋深处，或者品尝微波香肠。计算机已经彻底改变了我们的生活，它们拥有教育和传递知识的能力。但有时，这种能力引发的问题比它解决的问题更多。
Every doctor has had to try their best to calm down patients who’ve come into their surgery waving an Internet print-out, convinced that they have some rare incurable disease, say, throat cancer. The truth is usually far more ordinary, though: they don’t have throat cancer, and it’s just that their throats are swollen. Being a graduate of the Internet “school” of medicine does not guarantee accurate self-health-checks.
每一位医生都必须尽最大努力让那些挥舞着互联网打印件走进手术室的患者平静下来，他们确信自己患有某种罕见的不治之症，比如喉癌。然而，真相通常要简单得多：他们没有喉癌，只是喉咙肿了。身为互联网医学“学院”的毕业生并不保证能进行准确的自我健康检查。
One day Mrs. Almond came to my hospital after feeling faint at work. While I took her blood sample and tried to find out what was wrong, she said calmly, “I know what’s wrong; I’ve got throat cancer. I know there’s nothing you doctors can do about it and I’ve just got to wait until the day comes.”
有一天，阿蒙德太太在工作时感到头晕后来到我的医院。当我采集她的血样并寻找问题时，她平静地说：“我知道问题所在；我得了喉癌。我知道医生们对此无能为力，我只能等待那一天来临。”
As a matter of routine I ordered a chest X-ray. I looked at it and the blood results an hour later. Something wasn’t right. “Did your local doctor do an X-ray?” I asked. “Oh, I haven’t been to the doctor for years,” she replied. “I read about it on a website and the symptoms fitted, so I knew that’s what I had.”
作为惯例，我安排了一次胸部X光检查。一个小时后验血结果出来了，并非如此。“你们当地的医生做过X光检查吗？”我问。“哦，我好几年没看医生了”，她回答，“我在网上看过这方面的信息，症状符合，所以我知道我的病。”
However, some of her symptoms, like the severe cough and weight loss, didn’t fit with it—but she’d just ignored this.
然而，她的一些症状，比如咳嗽厉害，体重减轻，并不符合——但她忽视了这些。
I looked at the X-ray again, and more tests confirmed it wasn’t the cancer but tuberculosis —something that most certainly did need treating, and could be deadly. She was lucky we caught it when we did.
我又看了X光片，更多的检查证实不是癌症而是肺结核——确实需要治疗，可能致命。她很幸运我们发现了它。
Mrs. Almond went pale when I explained she would have to be on treatment for the next six months to ensure that she was fully recovered. It was certainly a lesson for her. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said, shaking her head, as I explained that all the people she had come into close contact with would have to be found out and tested. She listed up to about 20, and then I went to my office to type up my notes. Unexpectedly, the computer was not working, so I had to wait until someone from the IT department came to fix it. Typical. Maybe I should have a microwave sausage while I waited?
当我向阿蒙德夫人解释说她必须在接下来的六个月内接受治疗以确保完全康复时，她脸色苍白。这对她来说无疑是一个教训。当我解释说她所有密切接触过的人都必须找出来并接受检查时，她摇着头说：“我很尴尬”。她列出了大约20位，然后我去办公室打印。出乎意料的是，电脑坏了，所以我不得不等IT部门的人来修。通常这种情况下，也许我应该一边等一边吃个微波香肠？
