Question

read the excerpt from the time traveler’s guide to elizabethan england. but what if it comes to the worst? what if you have painful black buboes in your groin and armpits, and experience the rapid pulse, the headaches, the terrific thirst, and delirium that are the tokens of the plague? there is little you can do. physicians will prescribe the traditional medicines of dragon water, mithridatium, and theriac if they hear you are suffering but you will suspect that these are cynical attempts to relieve a dying person of his money. the physicians themselves will not normally come near you. simon forman, who does attend plague sufferers, is a rare exception: this is because he has himself survived the disease and believes he cannot catch it again. what is the central idea of this paragraph? physicians could not do much for victims of the plague. symptoms of the plague included headaches and delirium. symptoms were treated with dragon water or theriac. physicians were afraid to come near patients with symptoms

Explanation:

The paragraph opens with plague symptoms, then focuses on the limited help physicians provide: their ineffective traditional treatments, reluctance to approach patients, with only one rare exception. The other options only cover narrow details (symptoms, specific treatments, physician fear) rather than the overarching point about physicians' lack of meaningful aid for plague victims.

Answer:

Physicians could not do much for victims of the plague.