| death certificates | Official records of individual deaths including the cause of death certified by a physician, and any other required identifying information. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| death instinct | The instinct of all living creatures toward self-destruction, death, or a return to the inorganic lifelessness from which they arose. Synonym: aggressive instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
| death phase | <cell culture> The final growth phase in a culture, during which nutrients have been depleted and cell number decreases. (09 Oct 1997) |
| death rate | The number of deaths in the population divided by the average population (or the population at midyear) is the crude death rate. In 1994, for example, the crude death rate per 1,000 population was 8.8 in the United States, 7.1 in Australia, etc. A death rate can also be tabulated according to age or cause. (12 Dec 1998) |
| death-rattle | A respiratory gurgling or rattling in the throat of a dying person, caused by the loss of the cough reflex and accumulation of mucus. (05 Mar 2000) |
| death's-head | A naked human skull as the emblem of death; the head of the conventional personification of death. "I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth. <zoology> " (Shak) Death's-head moth, a very large European moth (Acherontia atropos), so called from a figure resembling a human skull on the back of the thorax. Synonym: death's-head sphinx. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| death, sudden | The sudden cessation of all vital bodily functions. Legally and medically, this includes the permanent cessation of total cerebral function, spontaneous function of the respiratory system, and spontaneous function of the circulatory system. (12 Dec 1998) |
| death, sudden, cardiac | The sudden cessation of cardiac contraction, leading to death of the heart and, ultimately, of the individual, resulting from ventricular tachycardia-fibrillation or asystole. (12 Dec 1998) |
| death trance | A condition of suspended animation, marked by unconsciousness and barely perceptible respiration and heart action. (05 Mar 2000) |
| direct maternal death | Death resulting from obstetric complications of the gestation, labour, or puerperium, and from interventions, omissions, incorrect treatment, or a chain of events caused by any of the above, indirect maternal death, an obstetric death resulting from previously existing disease or from disease developing during pregnancy, labour, or the puerperium; it is not directly due to obstetric causes, but to conditions aggravated by the physiological effects of pregnancy. (05 Mar 2000) |
| infant death | Death of a liveborn infant within the first year. (05 Mar 2000) |
| foetal death | <radiology> No foetal movement, no foetal heart movement, scalp oedema, Spalding's sign, hyperextended spine, thrombus within heart (12 Dec 1998) |
| foetal death rate | The number of foetal deaths divided by the sum of live births and foetal deaths occurring in the same population during the same time period. Synonym: stillbirth rate. (05 Mar 2000) |
| local death | Death of a part of the body or of a tissue by necrosis. (05 Mar 2000) |