The main impression growing out of twelve years on the faculty of a medical school is that the No.1 health problem in the U.S. today, even more than AIDS or cancer, is that Americans don’t know how to think about health and illness. Our reactions are formed on the terror level.

　　We fear the worst, expect the worst, thus invite the worst. The result is that we are becoming a nation of weaklings and hypochondriacs, a self-medicating society incapable of

　　distinguishing between casual, everyday symptoms and those that require professional attention.

　　Early in life, too, we become seized with the bizarre idea that we are constantly assaulted by invisible monsters called germs, and that we have to be on constant alert to protect ourselves against their fury. Equal emphasis, however, is not given to the presiding fact that our bodies are superbly equipped to deal with the little demons and the best way of forestalling an attack is to maintain a sensible life-style.

　　【参考翻译】

　　在医学院任教十二年来，我获得的主要印象是，当今美国头号健康问题——一个比艾滋病或癌症更为严重的问题——是美国人不知道如何去认识健康与疾病。我们的反应是惊恐万状。我们怕最坏的事，想着最坏的事，而恰恰就召来了最坏的事。结果 ，我们变成了一个孱弱不堪，总疑心自己有病的民族，一个分不清哪些是日常偶发症状，哪些是需要治疗的症状，而自己擅自用药的社会。

　　我们年轻的时候还染上了一种奇怪的观念：一种肉眼看不见的叫做细菌的小妖怪在不断向我们进攻，我们必须长备不懈地保护自己不受其伤害。然而，对另一个重要事实，我们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。