“Medicines are not meant to live on”, an English proverb says. Yes, that's true and we may add that good health is better than the best medicine. If your health is good, you are always in a good mood. “You have a sound mind in a sound body”, as an Old Latin saying goes. The English proverb "Sickness in the body brings sickness to the mind” expresses the similar idea, but from the different point of view. The profession of a doctor is one of the most noble, respected and needed in the worlds. We turn to a doctor for advice at the hardest moments of our life, when we fall ill or suffer from pain or some disorder in our body and soul. We complain of low medical treatment, poor equipment of hospitals, difficulties in getting this or that medicine and so on. We start to value our health only when it is necessary to take medicine. Taking medicine is an unpleasant thing of course, and if we want to avoid it, we should go in for sports and keep ourselves fit. Physical exercises are necessary. Physically inactive people catch cold more often than those who do plenty of exercises. Physical exercises are good pastime. That is true that good health is better than the best medicine. If you do early exercises you feel refreshed you have a good posture.
There are some rules for good health. Take long walks in the open air as often as you can. Keep your body clean. Keep your teeth clean. Wear clean clothes. Sleep with your window open. When you are reading or writing let the light come from your left shoulder. Have plenty of fruits and vegetables all the year round. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, the proverb says. There is nothing more unpleasant than being taken ill. If you are running a temperature, have a splitting headache, feel dizzy or cough, you go and see a doctor or send for him at once. The doctor will come and feel your pulse, take your temperature, listen to your heart, test your lungs, measure your blood pressure, etc. Certainly, the doctor will prescribe some medicine which you can get made up at the chemist’s. At the chemist's you can get different kinds of medicines: pulls, tablets, ointments and many other things. I remember one of my most serious illnesses. It was four years ago. Illness started unexpectedly. Early in the morning I woke up and felt dizzy and feverish. I had a splitting headache and terrible cough. My nose was running. I was sneezing all the time. I could hardly recognize my own voice. Besides, I was running a high temperature. The doctor asked me to strip to the waist, then sounded my lungs, felt my pulse, examined the throat. I was taken to hospital suffering from pneumonia. I had to stay for a month there and obliged to get a lot of penicillin injections. In the long run I recovered. But most of all I'm afraid of visiting a dentist. Toothache can't be compared with anything else. Extracting a tooth or having a tooth filled is painful.
