Aspirin is used to cure diseases

[keannu]

Which of the following is correct?

1. Aspirin is used to cure diseases.
2. Aspirin is used to cure disease.
3. Aspirin is used to cure people.

 

[charliedeut]

Hi,

However it turns out, I wouldn't say "aspirin is used to cure disease/s"

Aspirin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

charliedeut

 

[keannu]

What do you think is wrong? The grammar or the meaning? Does "cure" have to be used for people only? Or "cure" should be done by people?

 

[5jj]

What do you think is wrong? The grammar or the meaning? Does "cure" have to be used for people only? Or "cure" should be done by people?

Aspirin is used in the treatment of various conditions, but it does not appear to 'cure' anything or anyone.

 

[Tdol]

Of the three, the second is the least likely as it is only used to treat certain things- putting whether it's a cure for anything to one side.

 

[keannu]

Maybe I'm going in a wrong direction, and teachers seem to be telling me the wrong usage of "cure". According to the following, "cure" does mean "to restore the patient to full health", and "Asprin" has often made my headache go away, restoring me to a normal condition. I still can't get what is wrong with "cure" related to "aspirin".

What is the difference among cure treat heal
(I am assuming you mean cure in the medical sense.) To treat a medical problem is to provide comfort sometimes with the hope of a full recovery, sometimes with the knowledge there can never be a full recovery. To cure and to heal are to restore the patient to full health, but heal is often used when the problem goes away by itself.

The doctor is treating the patient for end-stage kidney failure.
The doctor cured the patient's acne.
The wound healed.

​

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

Maybe I'm going in a wrong direction, and teachers seem to be telling me the wrong usage of "cure". According to the following, "cure" does mean "to restore the patient to full health", and "Asprin" has often made my headache go away, restoring me to a normal condition. I still can't get what is wrong with "cure" related to "aspirin".​

Aspirin may make your headaches go away, but they won't go away for ever. That's what "cure" to me implies.

The doctor cured the patient's acne.

This sentence is fine because there are cures for acne. The patient may have head severe acne for some years, but after taking certain pills, the acne went away forever.

You may have heard people in the medical profession say that the cure for cancer still hasn't been found. But what about chemotherapy you might ask? Chemotherapy is not a real cure for cancer. It's a treatment. Chemotherapy is sometimes succesful, sometimes it isn't. There is still no real cure for cancer.

 

[SoothingDave]

Aspirin is not a cure because it treat the symptoms, not the underlying cause. Yes, aspirin can make a headache go away. But if the headache is caused by something like a tumor or hypertension, your underlying disease has not been cured.

 

[abaka]

I think it would help to distinguish medical terminology from the things people say in the course of everyday life.

It is true that medically aspirin treats, not cures.

In the context of popping a pill to be able to get on with your work that day or enjoy an evening out, on the other hand, an effective treatment is to most people the same as a cure, and I wouldn't be too harsh in proscribing the usage.

 

[keannu]

You mean the word "treat" is only for symptoms, unable to completely cure diseases? So does "treat" imply a lower level than "cure"?

 

[abaka]

SoothingDave said it well in post #8.

 

[5jj]

My mother's condition is being treated. It hasn't been cured yet.

 

[emsr2d2]

My mother's condition is being treated. It hasn't been cured yet.

Ditto. My mother is undergoing treatment. It will not be clear for several months whether or not what the medical team term a "cure" has been achieved.

Going back to your previous question, "to treat" is different from "to cure", yes. You can cure something in the long-term by treating it. The headache example was a good one. We treat headaches with painkillers - aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen etc. But having a headache isn't a disease or even really an illness. It might become one if you have a permanent headache or if you suffer, for example, from severe debilitating migraines a couple of times a month or more. In that situation, if someone found a drug which stopped those migraines from ever coming back, you might say "They've finally found a cure for my migraines". If you have a normal everyday headache and you take a couple of aspirin, you don't refer to it with "Wow! I have cured my headache!"

We generally cure the kind of long-term, chronic illnesses/diseases that people suffer from. For normal day-to-day ailments, we treat them.

 

[Tdol]

You mean the word "treat" is only for symptoms, unable to completely cure diseases? So does "treat" imply a lower level than "cure"?

Not necessarily only for symptoms- some things require medication for life to control them but are not just tinkering with symptoms.