Christian Eijkman, a Dutch doctor, left the Netherlands for the island of Java. Many people on the island had a disease called beri-beri. He was going there to try and find a cure.

    At first, Eijkman thought some kind of germ (细菌) caused beri-beri. He raised some chickens. He didn't eat them, but made experiments on them. The local people were quite surprised at that. One day he noticed that his chickens became sick when they were fed the food most Javanese ate — refined white rice (精炼米). When he fed them with unrefined rice, also known as brown rice, they recovered. Eijkman realized that he had made an important discovery — that some things in food could prevent disease. These things were named vitamins. The Javanese were not getting enough vitamins because they had actually removed the part that contains vitamins. Later, other diseases were also found to be caused by the lack of vitamins in a person's food.

    Today many people know the importance of vitamins and they make sure they have enough vitamins from the food they eat. If they don't, they can also take vitamin pills.

    A schoolgirl saved her father's life by kicking him in the chest after he suffered a serious allergic (过敏的) reaction which stopped his heart.

Izzy, nine, restarted father Colm's heart by stamping (踩) on his chest after he fell down at home and stopped breathing.

    Izzy's mother, Debbie, immediately called 999 but Izzy knew doctors would never arrive in time to save her father, so decided to use CPR.

However, she quickly discovered her arms weren't strong enough, so she stamped on her father's chest instead.

    Debbie then took over with some more conventional chest compressions (按压) until the ambulance arrived.

    Izzy, who has been given a bravery award by her school, said: "I just kicked him really hard. My mum taught me CPR but I knew I wasn't strong enough to use hands. I was quite scared. The doctor said I might as well be a doctor or a nurse. My mum said that Dad was going to hospital with a big footprint on his

"She's a little star," said Debbie, "i was really upset but Izzy just took over. I just can't believe what she did. I really think all children should be taught first aid. Izzy did CPR then the doctor turned up. Colm had to have more treatment on the way to the hospital and we've got to see an expert."

    Truck driver Colm, 35, suffered a mystery allergic reaction on Saturday and was taken to hospital, but was sent home only for it to happen again the next day. The second attack was so serious that his airway swelled, preventing him from breathing, his blood pressure dropped suddenly, and his heart stopped for a moment.

    He has now made a full recovery from his suffering.

    It was Mother's Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Teayson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her bead on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.

    Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. Ile said to me. “Mums it's not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”

    At the front of the supermarket a charity group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should boy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he'd come up such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can't take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”

    By now paramedics(救援人员) had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her.

    Instead I gave the flower to the woman's husband and told him. “My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”

    At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son, Happy Mother's Day to you.”

The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.

    "Hope has proved a powerful predictor of outcome in every study we've done so far," said Dr. Snyder, a psychologist.

    In research with 3,920 college students, Dr. Snyder found that the level of hope among freshmen at the beginning of their first term was a more accurate predictor of their college grades than were their S.A.T. scores or their grade point averages in high school. "Students with high hope set themselves higher goals and know how to work to attain them," Dr. Snyder said. "When you compare students with equal learning ability and past school achievements, what sets them apart is hope."

    In seeking a way to assess hope scientifically, Dr. Snyder went beyond the usual belief that hope is merely the sense that everything will turn out all right. "This idea is not concrete enough; it fails to clarify two key components of hope," Dr. Snyder said.

    "Having hope means believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be."

    Despite the wisdom in the old saying "where there's a will there's a way," Dr. Snyder has found that the two are not necessarily connected. In a study of people from 18 to 70 years old, Dr. Snyder discovered: only about 40% of people are hopeful in the technical sense of believing they typically have the energy and means to accomplish their goals; about 20% of the people believed in their ability to find the means to attain their goals, but said they had little will to do so; another 20% have the opposite pattern, saying they had the energy to motivate themselves but little confidence that they would find the means; the rest had little hope at all, reporting that they typically had neither the will nor the way.

    "It's not enough just to have the wish for something," said Dr. Snyder. "You need the means, too. On the other hand, all the skills to solve a problem won't help without the willpower to do it."

    Many people find that music lifts their spirits. Now a new research shows that music therapy (疗法) can be a useful treatment for depression.

    The finding that music therapy offers a real medical benefit to depression sufferers comes from a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit group that reviews health care issues. Some studies looked at the effects of providing music therapy to patients who were receiving drug treatment for depression. Others compared music therapy to traditional talk therapy. In four out of five of the trials, music therapy worked better at easing depression symptoms than therapies that did not employ music, the researchers found.

    “While the evidence came from a few small studies, it suggests that this is an area that is well worth further investigation.” said lead author Anna Maratos. Ms. Maratos notes that music therapy might be particularly useful for adolescents who may reject a traditional form of counseling. Some older patients also may not be comfortable talking about their feelings but do tend to express themselves through songs.

    There are two main types of music therapy. Sometimes, a therapist will listen to music with a patient and talk about the feelings or memories that it arouses. In another form, the therapist is a skilled musician and will improvise (即兴创作) music with the patient. If the patient doesn't play an instrument, he or she might be given a simple percussion (击打) instrument and the therapist will play along.

    Other studies have shown a benefit from music therapy in the treatment for dementia, learning disabilities, strokes and pain management during labor and birth. The problem is that there isn't very much high-quality research. "It doesn't easily attract serious research funding. It's difficult to do high-quality, large-scale trials." said Ms. Maratos.