gastroenteritis
Cabdriver M.D.
Dear Diary:
A few minutes after eating lunch one day at work in Chelsea, I suddenly felt feverish and sick to my stomach. Fearing food poisoning, I decided to go home early and went outside to hail a cab to avoid being sick on the subway.
A yellow cab pulled over, I jumped in and immediately called my fiancée to let her know what was happening.
“What are your symptoms?” the cabby asked after I ended my phone call. When my surprise at his question registered on my face, he told me reassuringly, “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.”
After explaining that he was a doctor from Pakistan, driving a taxi while awaiting his United States residency papers, he listened to my symptoms, asked me the usual doctor-like questions, and diagnosed gastroenteritis, saving me a visit to a clinic.
今回気になった単語は“gastroenteritis”です。“gastric”と少し似ていたので胃が関連しているのかと思い、調べてみると「胃腸炎」（『ジーニアス英和辞典第四版』大修館書店）、“a painful
illness which makes your stomach and INTESTINE become swollen”（LDOCE）とありました。私は「腸の」を意味する“enteric”を知らなかったので、調べて二つが組み合わさった単語であることが分かりました。（Green）
