NCERT Solutions for Class 11th English core chapter 20 – Birth

Exercises

Reading with insight

Question 1. ‘‘I have done something; oh, God! I’ve done something real at last’’. Why does Andrew say this? What does it mean?

Answer : Andrew is a doctor and the primary duty of the doctor is to save life. When he is faced with a dilemma, he does not lose his balance and does what he is expected to do. He saves the mother first and, by his Herculean efforts, saves a nearly dead, still born baby boy. What he performed was nothing short of miracle. Doctor’s sense of satisfaction is truly justified.

Doctors are expected to do their duties as and when demanded Andrew came home at midnight. He, surely, would have been tired but responded to the duty call when Joe Morgan asked him to come to his place. Morgan’s wife needed immediate help. Andrew performed his duties exceptionally well. That is why he says,‘‘I have done something; oh God! I’ve done something real at last”.

Question 2. There lies a great difference between textbook medicine and the world of a practising physician. Discuss.

Answer : From time immemorial, we have been hearing that there is a lot of difference between theory and practice. This, indeed, is true. The theoretical information gathered from the book, sometime, does not provide solutions to all the problems. The medical textbook provides information about the treatment of various diseases but at times, the doctors face a dilemma which cannot be solved by any orthodox theory.

In the lesson ‘Birth’ or Andrews undergoes the same experience. When the mother and son both needed his attention, he had to make a decision. In this decision making, no medical textbook could have helped him. In this case, Dr Andrew acted instinctively. He first saved the mother and then the child. He treated the mother with the traditional treatment and the child with a mixture of traditional and intuitive treatment. The net-result of both was success.

Question 3. Do you know of any incident when someone has been brought back to life from the brink of death through medical help. Discuss medical procedures such as organ transplant and organ regeneration that are used to save human life.

Answer : The progress in the field of medical science is astounding. Everyday, new medicines are invented for various diseases, which make yesteryears treatment outdated and redundant. In fact, people say that after five years, the surgical procedure would be so advanced that today’s surgical instruments will be termed as ‘Butchers instruments’. Organ transplant is such a procedure, which speaks volumes about the radical advancement in medical science. This progress turned out to be a real boon in my friend’s life. She suffered a renal failure. Inspite of mammoth efforts, a matching donor could not be found. There was an appeal made for the donor in all the leading dailies and television, and the miracle happened – ‘A perfect match was found’. The doctors wasted no time and the kidney transplant took place. With God’s grace, my friend is leading a healthy life. It happened almost fifteen years back’

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