About a half-mile behind our Minnesota farm lay a pond. In summer, my brother Harry and I would run through a stand of oak trees to skip stones there. The pond wore a collar of black mud. It was not a place for swimming.

In late summer, the pond would be covered by a green and bubbly scum(起泡的浮渣). Sometimes a strong, unpleasant smell rose from it. We stayed away.

When winter came, the pond was once again an inviting place. One day when ice covered it, Harry said to me, “Try walking across.”

The ice looked solid. No water showed through it, but I hesitated. “Go ahead.” Harry urged. “Try it. You’re lighter than I am. If the ice holds, we can run and slide carefully on it. It’ll be fun.” I wanted to please Harry, and I thought about the fun of a long slide on the ice. I began to slide across the pond.

In the middle of the pond, the ice gave way with a sudden crack(裂缝)! I stretched out(伸展) my arms. The next thing I knew I was hanging on to the edge of a hole in the ice by arms outstretched on the ice. From my shoulders down I hung in icy water. I thought of the bottom of the pond. I knew it would be black and awful down there, full of mud and maybe rotting creatures.

I tried to climb out of the hole, but when I got a knee on the ice, it broke like window glass. Again and again I tried to get out. Again and again the ice broke into pieces. The hole widened. I was wearing a coat of heavy material. As it became completely wet, it dragged me down. I was tired of the struggle and rested with my arms stretched out on the ice.

I looked at Harry on shore. He seemed rooted to the spot. “I can’t get out!” I screamed when I caught some breath.

Harry turned and ran from the pond.

The moment I crashed through the kitchen door, sobbing, mum rushed over.

It was in New Hampshire. Cody was an 11-year-old boy. Just like other boys, he enjoyed running around the lake, and sometimes picked yellow daisies for his mother’s kitchen table along the paths. But the thing he liked best was fishing. He went fishing whenever he had got a chance from the dock (船坞) at his family’s cabin on an island in the middle of the lake and he was proud of his fishing skills.

On the day before that year’s bass (鲈鱼) season opened, he and his father were fishing early in the evening, catching sunfish and perch with worms. Then he tied on a small silver lure (诱饵) and practiced casting. The lure struck the water, stirring up colored ripples in the sunset, and then silver ripples as the moon rose over the lake. It was an unusually quiet evening. The gentle breeze from the lake was so refreshing.

After what seemed a long time, Cody noticed his fishing pole doubled over and he knew at once that something huge was on the other end. His father watched with admiration as the boy skillfully worked the fish alongside the dock.

Finally, he very carefully lifted the exhausted fish from the water. It was the largest one he had ever seen, but it was a bass.

The boy and Ms father looked at the handsome fish, gilts playing back and forth in the moonlight. The father lit a match and looked at his watch. It was 10 P.M.-two hours before the season opened. He looked at the bass, then at Cody.

“You’ll have to put the fish back, son,” he said.

“Dad!” cried the boy.

“There will be other fish,” said his father gently but firmly.

“Not as big as this one,” cried the boy again.

Leeches as Medical Treatment

Leeches are small wormlike creatures that live in water and suck the blood of animals and humans. In the past, though, leeches were commonly used in medicine. Then advances in science led to other kinds of treatments, and leeches disappeared from the sick room. Now, however, they are making a comeback.

The use of leeches in medicine goes back at least 2,500 years. Doctors used them to treat the sick in ancient Egypt, India, Persia, and Greece. It was believed in those days that taking blood from patients helped to bring their bodies back into balance. This belief and the practice of draining blood with leeches continued through the ages.

Another use of leeches has been investigated by a team of German doctors who study the ability of leeches to reduce pain. Their patients suffer from arthritis, a painful joint disease that often affects knees, shoulders, or fingers. When the German doctors put leeches on the arthritic knees of their patients, almost all of them felt immediate relief from the pain. Most of the patients continued to be pain-free for over a month and some for as long as six months.

Leeches have also proved indirectly useful in treating patients with heart and blood diseases. Since the 1880s, researchers have understood that certain chemicals in. leeches prevent blood from clotting or becoming hard. Many people with heart or blood problems live with a serious risk of the formation of blood clots, which can travel through the blood to the heart or brain and cause death. In the 1950s, a scientist identified the chemical in a leech that prevents clotting. Later studies led to experiments with the chemical and the development of a drug that thins the blood of patients who are at risk for blood clots.

Though doctors today do not view the use of leeches as the all-purpose treatment it once was, they now see that for certain problems, this ancient remedy may be valid after all.

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The gene is often called the building block of life, because it is the smallest unit to carry information from one generation to another. Scientists working in the field of genetics are able to understand how one generation inherits important characteristics from the previous generation. But we are able to understand much more than merely why a particular family has a large number of red—haired children. We are also able to discover whether an individual is likely to live a long life, or suffer from particular diseases. This is called predictive genetics and the benefits of such research are many.

This description of the genetic code of the human being has long been the goal of scientists. Doctors are interested in this research, because of the possibility it would provide for treating long term illnesses. The treatment to those diseases could be greatly improved by early identification. There is also the possibility that an understanding of changes in gene order could be used to cure disease. Some researchers believe, for example, that genetic changes are responsible for many common diseases.

While no one doubts the advantages of gene mapping, it is also true that there is a dark side to all these knowledge. As with all scientific advances, the possibility exists that knowledge would be used to violate basic human rights. For example, you might be denied a job or a chance to move up in the company, because your genetic map indicates that you have a high probability of contracting a certain disease. The possibility that these would be used as a reason not to hire an employee or promote within the company is what worries people.

Many experts believe that the only way to address the risk is to pass national laws that prohibit discrimination. Such laws would forbid employers from failing to promote an employee or from dismissing an employee from the company merely because of genetic makeup. It’s clear that such laws will not remove genetic discrimination entirely, but they would greatly reduce such practices.