Unit 4 Life or Death

1. Unit 4 Life or Death

2. New words and expressions for Reading One: • strong: You can use strong when you are saying how many people there are in a group. For example, if a group is twenty strong, there are twenty people in it. [和数字连用]达...… 之数的; 人数多达……的 • a military force 100,000 strong • 一支100,000人的军队 • Ukraine indicated that it would establish its own army, 400,000 strong.

3. resuscitate: If you resuscitate someone who has stopped breathing, you cause them to start breathing again. • The doctor resuscitated the man who was overcome by gas. • 医生救活了那个煤气中毒的人。 • macho:You use macho to describe men who are very conscious and proud of their masculinity. (INFORMAL)

4. bowel: Your bowels are the tubes in your body through which digested food passes from your stomach to your anus. • bladder: Your bladder is the part of your body where urine is stored until it leaves your body. • haggard: Someone who looks haggard has a tired expression and shadows under their eyes, especially because they are ill or have not had enough sleep. • He was pale and a bit haggard...

5. beaten: totally worn-out; exhausted • 累坏了；精疲力竭的 • waste away: If someone wastes away, they become extremely thin or weak because they are ill or worried and they are not eating properly. • Persons dying from cancer grow thin and visibly waste away.

6. I. V.: An I. V. (short for intra-venous drip) is a medical treatment used to put liquid directly into one’s body through a tube or tubes inserted into a vein. • code blue: A code blue is a warning issued to call in the code team — the team in the hospital that gives emergency aids to patients.

7. saliva: Saliva is the watery liquid that forms in your mouth and helps you to chew and digest food. • drool: If a person or animal drools, saliva drops slowly from their mouth. • My dog Jacques is drooling on my shoulder.

8. crater: A crater is a very large hole in the ground, which has been caused by something hitting it or by an explosion. • suction: If a doctor or nurse suctions a liquid, they remove it by using a machine which sucks it away. • Michael was showing the nurse how to suction his saliva...

9. feces: the solid waste substance that people and animals get rid of from their body by passing it through the anus (FORMAL) • lye: [化] 碱液 • linen: 亚麻布品（衬衫、桌布、餐巾、床单等） • upholstery: Upholstery is the soft covering on chairs and seats that makes them more comfortable to sit on. • ...white leather upholstery... • Simon rested his head against the upholstery.

10. lucid: If someone is lucid, they are thinking clearly again after a period of illness or confusion. (FORMAL) • In her more lucid moments the old lady would talk about her past. • crumble:When someone crumbles into someone’s arms, they collapse or fall limply into someone’s arms.

11. impotence: Impotence is a lack of power to influence people or events. • ...a sense of impotence in the face of deplorable events. • = powerlessness • self-righteous: If you describe someone as self-righteous, you disapprove of them because they are convinced that they are right in their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior and that other people are wrong. • He is critical of the monks, whom he considers narrow-minded and self-righteous.

12. meddle: If you say that someone meddles in something, you are criticizing the fact that they try to influence or change it without being asked. • Already some people are asking whether scientists have any right to meddle in such matters... • He accused the US of meddling in China’s internal affairs. • = interfere

13. riddle: to spread throughout 充斥，弥漫 • clutch: A clutch of panic means a violent attack of a feeling of fear. • band: constrain or bind • waxen: A waxen face is very pale and looks very unhealthy. (LITERARY) • pallor: If you refer to the pallor of someone's face or skin, you mean that it is pale and unhealthy. • The deathly pallor of her skin had been replaced by the faintest flush of color...

14. Check Your Comprehension • What was Mac like when he was first admitted into the hospital? He was a young, witty, strong policeman. He walked into the hospital wearing full police regalia, claiming to have nothing wrong but some coughing. • What was the relationship like between the nurse (the narrator) and Mac’s family? The author says Mac was her favorite patient. She was fond of his wife and three children as if they were her own.

15. Check Your Comprehension 3. How does the narrator describe Mac after he was in hospital for six months? Mac lost his youth, his wit, his machoness, his hair, his bowel and bladder control, his sense of taste and smell, and his ability to do the slightest thing for himself. 4. What did the “code blue” team do to Mac? Why did the nurse say that every night she prayed that Mac would die? They resuscitated Mac each time he stopped breathing. The nurse prayed for Mac to die because she keenly felt the sufferings of everyone involved.

16. Check Your Comprehension 5. What is a no-code order? What are the consequences if a nurse fails to push the button for the code blue team without the no-code order? It is an order that the patient is not to get resuscitation when he stops breathing. If such an order is not given and a nurse fails to call for the code blue team when a patient stops breathing, she is liable for the court charge of murder.

17. Check Your Comprehension 6. The narrator asks some wrenching questions about the attitude and behavior of the medical community (refer back to Para. 11). What basic question is she really asking? The basic question she was asking is “Do we have the right to die?”

18. New words and expressions for Reading Two: • congestive: A congestive disease is a medical condition where a part of the body becomes blocked. (MEDICAL) • angiogram: 血管造影照片：用血管造影术给一个或多个血管拍出的X射线照片，用于诊断心血管系统的病理状况。

19. hiccup: When you have hiccups, you make repeated sharp sounds in your throat, often because you have been eating or drinking too quickly. • A young baby may frequently get a bout of hiccups during or soon after a feed. • ingestion:When animals or plants ingest a substance, they take it into themselves, for example by eating or absorbing it. “Ingestion” is the noun form.

20. vocal cords: Your vocal cords are the part of your throat that vibrates when you speak. • pleurisy: Pleurisy is a serious illness in which a person’s lungs are sore and breathing is difficult. • slime: Slime is a thick, wet substance which covers a surface or comes from the bodies of animals such as snails.

21. resonance: [uncountable] the resonance of a sound is its quality of being deep and loud and continuing for a long time • croak: If someone croaks something, they say it in a low, rough voice. • She croaked something unintelligible. • rigorous: A test, system, or procedure that is rigorous is very thorough and strict. • The selection process is based on rigorous tests of competence and experience.

22. sodium: Sodium is a silvery-white chemical element which combines with other chemicals. Salt is a sodium compound. A low-sodium diet is one that is low in salt. • The fish or seafood is heavily salted with pure sodium chloride. • ...one level teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate powder.

23. octogenarian:An octogenarian is a person who is between eighty and eighty-nine years old. • cardiovascular: Cardiovascular means relating to the heart and blood vessels. (MEDICAL) • Smoking places you at serious risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

24. surcease: The surcease of something is the cessation or ending of that thing. • dues: regular payments you make to an organization of which you are a member • Robert failed to pay his dues last year. • = fees

25. grim: A situation or piece of information that is grim is unpleasant, depressing, and difficult to accept. • They painted a grim picture of growing crime... • There was further grim economic news yesterday... • The mood could not have been grimmer.

26. disruption: When there is disruption of an event, system, or process, it is prevented from continuing or operating in a normal way. • The strike is expected to cause delays and disruption to flights from Britain...

27. spell: A spell of a particular type of weather or a particular activity is a short period of time during which this type of weather or activity occurs. • There has been a long spell of dry weather... • You join a barrister for two six-month spells of practical experience. • = period

28. comatose: A person who is comatose is in a coma. (MEDICAL) • The right side of my brain had been so severely bruised that I was comatose for a month. • senility: If old people become senile, they become confused, can no longer remember things, and are unable to look after themselves. “Senility” is the noun form. • The old man was showing unmistakable signs of senility.

29. bask: If you bask in the sunshine, you lie somewhere sunny and enjoy the warmth. • All through the hot, still days of their holiday Amy basked in the sun... • Crocodiles bask on the small sandy beaches.

30. testament: Law a written document providing for the disposition of a person’s property after death; a will • 【法律】遗嘱：一种规定死后其财产分配的书面文件；遗嘱。 • posterity: You can refer to everyone who will be alive in the future as posterity. (FORMAL) • A photographer recorded the scene on video for posterity...

31. delude: If you delude yourself, you let yourself believe that something is true, even though it is not true. • The President was deluding himself if he thought he was safe from such action... • We delude ourselves that we are in control... • I had deluded myself into believing that it would all come right in the end.

32. posthumously: Posthumous is used to describe something that happens after a person’s death but relates to something they did before they died. “Posthumously” is the adverb form. • He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.

33. infirm: A person who is infirm is weak or ill, and usually old. (FORMAL) • mindful: If you are mindful of something, you think about it and consider it when taking action. (FORMAL) • We must be mindful of the consequences of selfishness... • = aware

34. mattress: A mattress is the large, flat object which is put on a bed to make it comfortable to sleep on. • envisage: If you envisage something, you imagine that it is true, real, or likely to happen. • He envisages the possibility of establishing direct diplomatic relations in the future... • He had never envisaged spending the whole of his working life in that particular job... • Personally, I envisage them staying together. • = imagine, envision

35. infallible: If a person or thing is infallible, they are never wrong. • Although he was experienced, he was not infallible... • ≠ fallible

36. Check Your Comprehension B • 1. The doctor turned down my request of discontinuing the life-supporting services and said that someday I would understand the request was not wise. • 2. Some can and have cited my experience to argue that it is unwise to grant the request of a critically ill person who wants to discontinue all life-supporting services and die.

37. Check Your Comprehension B • 3. I am scared that I would suffer from another heart attack or stroke and make my family and friends suffer what they suffered during my first attack. • 4. However, it is unnecessary and very upsetting to make my family suffer again for a period of time when I am dying, or even worse, when I remain alive but turn to a vegetable.

38. Check Your Comprehension B • 5. In a way, my views reflect the reality of those old and sick people who, unfortunately, survived, but are now paralyzed.

39. Check Your Vocabulary A

40. Check Your Vocabulary A

41. Check Your Vocabulary A

42. New words and expressions for Reading Three: • advanced: Something that is at an advanced stage or level is at a late stage of development. • an advanced stage of illness疾病的晚期 • a person of advanced age年迈的人 • close in: If a group of people close in on a person or place, they come nearer and nearer to them and gradually surround them. • Hitler himself committed suicide as Soviet forces were closing in on Berlin... • = move in

43. hobble: If you hobble, you walk in an awkward way with small steps, for example because your foot is injured. • He got up slowly and hobbled over to the coffee table... • The swelling had begun to go down, and he was able, with pain, to hobble.

44. femur: Your femur is the large bone in the upper part of your leg. • shatter: If something shatters or is shattered, it breaks into a lot of small pieces. • ...safety glass that won’t shatter if it’s broken... • The car shattered into a thousand burning pieces in a 200mph crash... • One bullet shattered his skull.

45. disintegration: If something disintegrates, it becomes seriously weakened, and is divided or destroyed. “Disintegration” is the noun form. • the disintegration of the Soviet empire into separate republics • pin: When broken bones are pinned, they are fastened back together with long narrow pieces of metal.

46. palliative: A drug or medical treatment that is palliative is one which relieves suffering without treating the cause of the suffering. In other words, “pain-relief.” • lift: If something lifts your spirits or your mood, or if they lift, you start feeling more cheerful. • He used his incredible sense of humor to lift my spirits... • As soon as she heard the telephone ring her spirits lifted.

47. intervention: [uncountable and countable] the act of becoming involved in an argument, fight, or other difficult situation in order to change what happens • The British government may have to abandon its policy of non-intervention. • terminally: A terminal illness or disease causes death, often slowly, and cannot be cured. “Terminally” is the adverb form.

48. overturn: If someone in authority overturns a legal decision, they officially decide that that decision is incorrect or not valid. • His nine-month sentence was overturned by Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Watkins. • = overrule

49. trot: Trot is a quick pace horses use. As it is used, metaphorically and colloquially, in the text, it means a period of time or experience, just like the American English phrase “a rough ride.”

50. Check Your Comprehension A • 1. What condition was Mr. Williams in when he first thought of requesting euthanasia? His advanced kidney cancer was getting worse and his leg bone broke. • 2. Why did Mr. Williams oppose the idea of euthanasia later? Because he believes that people may ask for euthanasia in moments of despair.