Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

digitalis

(Encyclopedia)digitalis dĭjˌĭtălˈĭs [key], any of several chemically similar drugs used primarily to increase the force and rate of heart contractions, especially in damaged heart muscle. The effects of the d...

international language

(Encyclopedia)international language, sometimes called universal language, a language intended to be used by people of different linguistic backgrounds to facilitate communication among them and to reduce the misun...

Forssmann, Werner

(Encyclopedia)Forssmann, Werner vĕrˈnər fôrsˈmän [key], 1904–79, German physician and physiologist, M.D. Univ. of Berlin (1929). In the late 1920s, he developed the technique of cardiac catheterization, whe...

lake dwelling

(Encyclopedia)lake dwelling, prehistoric habitation built over the shallow waters of a lake shore or a marsh, usually erected on pile-supported platforms, but sometimes on artificial islands or mounds. Such a site ...

artery

(Encyclopedia)artery, blood vessel that conveys blood away from the heart. Except for the pulmonary artery, which carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs, arteries carry oxygenated blood from the hea...

Taussig, Helen Brooke

(Encyclopedia)Taussig, Helen Brooke, 1898–1986, American physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., M.D. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1927. She spent her entire career at Johns Hopkins, where she founded the field of pediatric card...

Cournand, André Frederic

(Encyclopedia)Cournand, André Frederic ko͞orˈnănd [key], 1895–1988, American physician and physiologist, b. France, B.A. Sorbonne, 1913, M.D. Univ. of Paris, 1930. He emigrated to the United States in 1930 an...

aspartame

(Encyclopedia)aspartame: see sweetener, artificial. ...

sucralose

(Encyclopedia)sucralose: see sweetener, artificial. ...

endocarditis

(Encyclopedia)endocarditis ĕnˌdōkärdīˈtĭs [key], bacterial or fungal infection of the endocardium (inner lining of the heart) that can be either acute or subacute. In the acute form the symptoms (fever, mala...