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Legionnaire's disease

(Encyclopedia)Legionnaire's disease ljnârz´ [key], infectious, sometimes fatal, disease characterized by high fever, dry cough, lung congestion, and subsequent pneumonia. Major organs, such as the heart, ma...

disease

(Encyclopedia)disease, impairment of the normal state or functioning of the body as a whole or of any of its parts. Some diseases are acute, producing severe symptoms that terminate after a short time, e.g., pneumo...

post-mortem examination

(Encyclopedia)post-mortem examination or autopsy, systematic examination of a cadaver for study or for determining the cause of death. Post-mortems use many methodical procedures to determine the etiology and patho...

rickettsia

(Encyclopedia)rickettsia rkt´s [key], any of an order (Rickettsiales) of very small microorganisms, many disease-causing, that live in vertebrates and are transmitted by bloodsucking parasitic arthropods s...

public health

(Encyclopedia)public health, field of medicine and hygiene dealing with the prevention of disease and the promotion of health by government agencies. In the United States, public health authorities are engaged in m...

collagen disease

(Encyclopedia)collagen disease: see autoimmune disease; collagen.

Alzheimer's disease

(Encyclopedia)Alzheimer's disease ls´hmrz, ôls– [key], degenerative disease of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex that leads to atrophy of the brain and senile dementia and, ultimately, death. The disea...

fifth disease

(Encyclopedia)fifth disease: see parvovirus.

Graves' disease

(Encyclopedia)Graves' disease: see thyroid gland.

heart disease

(Encyclopedia)heart disease, any of several abnormalities of the heart and its function in maintaining blood circulation. Heart disease is the cause of approximately half the deaths in the United States each year. ...