| Abbott's tube | A tube with two lumens, one ending in a small collapsible balloon and the other in a metallic tip with numerous perforations; used for intestinal decompression. Synonym: Abbott's tube. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| Abbott, Alexander | <person> U.S. Bacteriologist, 1860-1935. See: Abbott's stain for spores. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Abbott, Edville | <person> U.S. Orthopedic surgeon, 1871-1938. See: Abbott's method. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Abbott, W. Osler | <person> U.S. Physician, 1902-1943. See: Abbott's tube, Miller-Abbott tube. (05 Mar 2000) |
| abbreviate | 1. To make briefer; to shorten; to abridge; to reduce by contraction or omission, especially of words written or spoken. "It is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off." 2. <mathematics> To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction. 3. <biology> Having one part relatively shorter than another or than the ordinary type. See: abridge. Origin: L. Abbreviatus, p.p. Of abbreviare; ad + breviare to shorten, fr. Brevis short. (11 Mar 1998) |
| abbreviated injury scale | Classification system for assessing impact injury severity developed and published by the american association for automotive medicine. It is the system of choice for coding single injuries and is the foundation for methods assessing multiple injuries or for assessing cumulative effects of more than one injury. These include maximum ais (mais), injury severity score (iss), and probability of death score (pods). (12 Dec 1998) |
| abbreviations | Shortened forms of written words or phrases used for brevity. (12 Dec 1998) |
| ABC leads | The leads for recording one kind of vectorcardiogram utilizing the Arrighi triangle; supplanted by XYZ leads. (05 Mar 2000) |
| ABC process | Purification of water or deodorization of sewage by a mixture of alum, blood, and charcoal. (05 Mar 2000) |
| abc transporters | A superfamily of oligopeptide permease proteins responsible for transporting a wide range of substrates across membranes. (12 Dec 1998) |
| abcoulomb | A unit of electrical charge equal to 10 coulombs. The charge that passes over a given surface in 1 second if a current of 1 abampere is flowing across the surface. Origin: ab + coulomb (05 Mar 2000) |
| abdomen | <anatomy> The portion of the body which lies between the thorax and the pelvis. It contains a cavity (abdominal cavity) separated by the diaphragm from the thoracic cavity above and by the plane of the pelvic inlet from the pelvic cavity below and lined with a serous membrane, the peritoneum. This cavity contains the abdominal viscera and is enclosed by a wall formed by the abdominal muscles, vertebral column and the ilia. It is divided into nine regions by four imaginary lines projected onto the anterior wall, of which two pass horizontally around the body (the upper at the level of the cartilages of the ninth ribs, the lower at the tops of the crests of the ilia) and two extend vertically on each side of the body from the cartilage of the eighth rib to the centre of the inguinal ligament. The regions are: three upper right hypochondriac, epigastric, left hypochondriac, three middle right lateral, umbilical, left lateral and three lower right inguinal, pubic, left inguinal. Origin: L. Possibly from abdere = to hide (15 Oct 1997) |
| abdomen obstipum | A rarely used term for deformity of the abdomen due to congenitally short rectus muscles. (05 Mar 2000) |
| abdomen, acute | Clinical syndrome characterised by abdominal pain of great severity associated with other symptoms and signs, usually those of acute peritonitis, which might well be the result of a ruptured abdominal viscus or a similar abdominal catastrophe requiring urgent surgical operation. (12 Dec 1998) |
| abdominal | <anatomy> Pertaining to the abdomen. Origin: L. Abdominalis (18 Nov 1997) |