Health：Do not smoke!
【明報專訊】Dr Panda meets Bill on the street.
Dr Panda: I can smell the scent of cigarettes. Bill, did you smoke?
Bill: No, I didn't! My parents smoke a lot at home. They smoke every day. I guess the smell of secondhand smoke has clung to my clothes.
Dr Panda: Opps! Perhaps you should persuade them to quit smoking. Secondhand smoke can cause many fatal diseases such as heart diseases and cancers.
Bill: What? Is it true?
Dr Panda: Trust me, in the long run, studies show that secondhand smoke can cause or is associated with certain diseases like lung cancer, asthma, middle ear infection. You are like breathing in toxic air every day.
Bill: Dr Panda, do you have a full-face industrial face mask? I am still young, I don't want to die at this age. I need to filter out all the chemicals.
Dr Panda: Relax, Bill. Secondhand smoke is not unavoidable – you can tell your parents how hazardous(有害的) secondhand smoke is to your health. Make sure to talk to them with patience, since it must be a difficult job for them to quit smoking. Give them some time.
◆Tips
Some substances in cigarettes would harm nearly every organ of the body and cause various diseases. One example is nicotine(尼古丁), which narrow blood vessels. Tar(焦油) is carcinogenic(致癌的).
■Game
Dr Panda is giving a speech about smoking in a school, but some of the words are missing. Help him finish this crossword.
1. (adj ) Used to refer to a substance that causes cancer.
2. (adj) Used to refer to something which causes death.
3. (n) A medical condition that makes breathing difficult by blocking or narrowing the air passage.
4. (n) The substance in cigarettes which is addictive and narrows blood vessels.
5. (n) A tube that carries liquids such as blood through the body.
(Answers on next text)
■Glossary
persuade (v) 說服
fatal (adj) 致命的
infection (n) 感染
unavoidable (adj) 不可避免的
[Smarties' Power English 第298期]
