Reading
1. GW. Read the text and place the removed sentences correctly
Powerful Placebos

Many doctors know the story of “Mr Wright”. In 1957 he was diagnosed with cancer, and given only days to live. (a) __. He heard that scientists had discovered a new medication, Krebiozen, that was effective against cancer, and begged the doctor to give it to him. His physician, Dr Philip West, finally agreed. (b) __. The astonished doctor found his patient out of his “death bed”, joking with the nurses the following Monday. (c) __. Two months later, Mr Wright read medical reports that the medication was fake. His condition immediately got worse again. “Don’t believe what you read in the papers”, the doctor told Mr Wright. Then he injected* him with what he said was “a new super-refined double strength” version of the drug. Actually, there was no drug, just a mix of salt and water, but again the tumours* melted. Mr Wright was in good health for another two months until he read an official report saying that Krebiozen was worthless. He died two days later. (d) __. Scientists have discovered that the placebo effect is more powerful than they had ever thought and themselves are surprised as they discover how such miraculous results are achieved. Through new techniques of brain imagery, it can be shown that a thought, belief or desire can cause chemical processes in the brain which can have powerful effects on the body. (e) __. But by what the brain expects to happen next. Placebos are “lies that heal”, said Dr Anne Harrington, a historian of science at Harvard University. (f) “__ And it is typically a treatment that a doctor gives to anxious patients to please them,” she said. “It looks like medication, but has no healing ingredients at all.” (g) __. But these treatments have not diminished the power of the placebos.

1. He had tumours the size of oranges.
2. Mr Wright had been given an injection on Friday afternoon.
3. This story has been ignored by doctors for a long time, dismissed as one of those strange tales that medicine cannot explain.
4. Scientists are learning that some body reactions are not caused by information coming into the brain from the outside world.
5. “The word placebo is Latin for “I shall please” (or I shall make you happy).
6. Nowadays, doctors have much more effective medicines to fight disease.
7. The doctor wrote later, “The tumours had melted like snowballs on a hot stove.”
*inject - introduce (a liquid, especially a drug or vaccine) into the body
*tumour - a swelling of a part of the body, generally caused by
an abnormal growth of tissue