| AHS | Academy of Health Sciences; African horse sickness; alveolar hypoventilation syndrome; American Hear... |
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| AMS | ablepharon-microstomia syndrome; acute mountain sickness; adenosylmethionine synthetase; aggravated ... |
| ASS | acute serum sickness; acute spinal stenosis; anterior superior spine; argininosuccinate synthetase |
| DCS | decompression sickness; dense canalicular system; diffuse cortical sclerosis; dorsal column stimulat... |
| DGS | decompression sickness; developmental Gerstmann syndrome; diabetic glomerulosclerosis; Di George seq... |
| sleeping sickness | <protozoa> Genus of Protozoa that causes serious infections in humans and domestic animals. African trypanosomes, of the brucei group, are carried by Tsetse flies and, when they enter the bloodstream of the mammalian host go through a complex series of stages. Perhaps the most interesting feature is that there are recurrent bouts of parasitaemia as the parasite alters its surface antigens to evade the immune response of the host (see antigenic variation). The repertoire of antigenic variation is considerable. The s.American trypanosomes (of which T. Cruzi is the best known) are carried by reduviid bugs and cause a chronic and incurable disease. Other interesting features of trypansomes are the kinetoplast DNA and glycosomes (organelles containing enzymes of the glycolytic chain). (18 Nov 1997) |
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| spotted sickness | An infectious disease of the skin caused by treponema carateum that occurs only in the western hemisphere. Age of onset is between 10 and 20 years of age. This condition is characterised by marked changes in the skin colour and is believed to be transmitted by direct person-to-person contact. (12 Dec 1998) |
| decompression sickness | A disorder characterised by joint pains, respiratory manifestations, skin lesions, and neurologic signs, occurring in aviators flying at high altitudes and following rapid reduction of air pressure in persons who have been breathing compressed air in caissons and diving apparatus. (12 Dec 1998) |
| sweating sickness | A disease characterised by fever and profuse sweating and associated with high mortality. It occurred in epidemic form five times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in england, first in 1485 and last in 1551. The disease tended to occur during the summer and early autumn, attacking the relatively affluent adult male population. The aetiology was unknown. (hunter pr. The english sweating sickness, with particular reference to the 1551 outbreak in chester. Rev infect dis 1991;13(2):303-6, from abstract) (12 Dec 1998) |
| Indian sickness | A generally fatal disease affecting chiefly children in the tropics, characterised by gangrenous ulceration of the rectum and anus, accompanied by frequent watery stools and tenesmus. Synonym: bicho, caribi, Indian sickness. (05 Mar 2000) |
| East African sleeping sickness | A disease of humans caused by Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in eastern Africa from Ethiopia and Uganda south to Zimbabwe; it is clinically similar to Gambian trypanosomiasis but of shorter duration and more acute in form; patients suffer repeated episodes of pyrexia, become anaemic, and die commonly from cardiac failure. Synonym: acute African sleeping sickness, acute trypanosomiasis, East African sleeping sickness, East African trypanosomiasis. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Jamaican vomiting sickness | An acute and frequently fatal vomiting disease associated with central nervous system symptoms and marked hypoglycaemia, caused by eating unripe ackee fruit of Blighia spaida, a tree common in Jamaica. Synonym: Jamaican vomiting sickness. (05 Mar 2000) |
| falling sickness | <disease, neurology> The paroxysmal transient disturbances of brain function that may be manifested as episodic impairment or loss of consciousness, abnormal motor phenomena, psychic or sensory disturbances or perturbation of the autonomic nervous system. Symptoms are due to paroxysmal disturbance of the electrical activity of the brain. On the basis of origin, epilepsy is idiopathic (cryptogenic, essential, genetic) or symptomatic (acquired, organic). On the basis of clinical and electroencephalographic phenomenon, four subdivisions are recognised: 1. Grand mal epilepsy (major epilepsy, haut mal epilepsy) subgroups: generalised, focal (localised), jacksonian (rolandic) 2. Petit mal epilepsy 3. Psychomotor epilepsy (temporal lobe epilepsy, psychic, psychic equivalent or variant) subgroups: psychomotor proper (tonic with adversive or torsion movements or masticatory phenomena), automatic (with amnesia) and sensory (hallucinations or dream states or d굁. Vu) 4. Autonomic epilepsy (diencephalic), with flushing, pallor, tachycardia, hypertension, perspiration or other visceral symptoms. Synonym: epilepsia. Origin: Gr. Epilepsia = seizure (14 May 1997) |
| lambing sickness | A highly fatal metabolic disease of well-nourished ewes in the late stages of pregnancy, especially in ewes carrying twin lambs; it is caused by carbohydrate depletion of the blood and tissues, and is characterised by hypoglycaemia, ketonuria, fatty infiltration of the liver, rapid emaciation, coma, and a high death rate. Synonym: lambing paralysis, lambing sickness. (05 Mar 2000) |
| laughing sickness | See: pseudobulbar paralysis. (05 Mar 2000) |
| alveolar dead space | The difference between physiologic dead space and anatomical dead space; it represents that part of the physiologic dead space resulting from ventilation of relatively underperfused or nonperfused alveoli; it differs specifically in being placed so as to fill and empty in parallel with functional alveoli, rather than being interposed in the conducting tubes between functional alveoli and the external environment. (05 Mar 2000) |
| anatomical dead space | The volume of the conducting airways from the external environment (at the nose and mouth) down to the level at which inspired gas exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide with pulmonary capillary blood; formerly presumed to extend down to the beginning of alveolar epithelium in the respiratory bronchioles, but more recent evidence indicates that effective gas exchange extends some distance up the thicker-walled conducting airways because of rapid longitudinal mixing. Compare: alveolar dead space, physiologic dead space. Synonym: anatomical airway. (05 Mar 2000) |
| antecubital space | The fossa in front of the elbow, bounded laterally and medially by the humeral origins of the extensors and flexors of the forearm, respectively, and superiorly by an imaginary line connecting the humeral condyles. Synonym: fossa cubitalis, antecubital space, chelidon, triangle of elbow. (05 Mar 2000) |
| anterior clear space | On lateral chest radiographs, the region dorsal to the sternum and ventral to the ascending aorta. Synonym: anterior clear space. (05 Mar 2000) |
| apical space | The space between the alveolar wall and the apex of the root of a tooth where an alveolar abscess usually has its origin. (05 Mar 2000) |