What medicinal drugs can do

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President Donald Trump, as all the world knows, has had a bout of illness caused by the Covid 19 virus. He is of the opinion that he is now cured and ready to get back to work, which in his case means firing off tweets as rapidly as possible. He has made it very clear that he owes his recovery to the medicinal drugs that he was given at the Walter Reed Medical Centre. He reckons that anyone who is similarly afflicted would also benefit from the same treatment, and that these drugs should be offered to all sufferers free of charge. He has made a miraculous recovery and so, therefore, can everybody else. However, maybe Donald is not completely in tune with what it is that drugs actually do. They can, in fact, do many things, including: A. Cure a disease. These drugs deal with the root cause and sort it out. For example, antibiotics are often very good at clearing up a bacterial infection. B: Relieve symptoms. These do not effect a cure, but they make the patient feel considerably better. An analgesic, for example, can relieve pain without doing anything to tackle the disease itself. C. Delay the progress of a disease. Many cancer patients can have their lives extended for many years by courses of chemotherapy that slow the progress of the cancer but may not bring it to a halt. Likewise, many patients take drugs that control factors such as blood pressure that would otherwise run out of control and threaten their lives. Donald Trump clearly believes that the drugs that are benefiting him fall into category A. But maybe they belong to B or C?