Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Bergen, town, Lower Saxony, Germany

(Encyclopedia)Bergen, town, Lower Saxony, N Germany, 13 mi (21 km) NW of Celle. Building materials are manufactured. A North Atlantic Treaty Organization base is outs...

bloodletting

(Encyclopedia)bloodletting, also called bleeding, practice of drawing blood from the body in the treatment of disease. General bloodletting consists of the abstraction of blood by incision into an artery (arterioto...

measles

(Encyclopedia)measles or rubeola ro͞obēˈələ [key], highly contagious disease typically contracted during childhood, caused by a filterable virus and spread by droplet spray from the nose, mouth, and throat of ...

coronavirus

(Encyclopedia)coronavirus, any of a group (family Coronaviridae, subfamily Orthocoronavirinae) of enveloped single-stranded RNA viruses that have a crownlike or sunlike appearance under an electron microscope due t...

cirrhosis

(Encyclopedia)cirrhosis sərōˈsəs [key], degeneration of tissue in an organ resulting in fibrosis, with nodule and scar formation. The term is most often used in relation to the liver, because that organ is most...

birth defects

(Encyclopedia)birth defects, abnormalities in physical or mental structure or function that are present at birth. They range from minor to seriously deforming or life-threatening. A major defect of some type occurs...

menopause

(Encyclopedia)menopause klīmăkˈtərĭk, klīˌmăktĕrˈĭk [key], transitional phase in a woman's life when the ovaries stop releasing eggs, ovarian production of estrogen and other hormones tapers off, and men...

breast cancer

(Encyclopedia)breast cancer, cancer that originates in the breast. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women (following lung cancer). Although the vast majority of the cases occur in women,...

locoweed

(Encyclopedia)locoweed or crazyweed [Span. loco=crazy], any of several American species of the genera Astragalus and Oxytropus, north-temperate leguminous plants of the family Leguminosae (pulse family), that, when...

malnutrition

(Encyclopedia)malnutrition, insufficiency of one or more nutritional elements necessary for health and well-being. Primary malnutrition is caused by the lack of essential foodstuffs—usually vitamins, minerals, or...