Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Memphis, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Memphis mĕmˈfĭs [key], city (1990 pop. 610,337), seat of Shelby co., SW Tenn., on the Fourth, or Lower, Chickasaw Bluff above the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Wolf River; inc. 1826. A river por...

pollen

(Encyclopedia)pollen, minute grains, usually yellow in color but occasionally white, brown, red, or purple, borne in the anther sac at the tip of the slender filament of the stamen of a flowering plant or in the ma...

Havana

(Encyclopedia)Havana lä äväˈnä [key], city and, as Ciudad de La Habana, province (1997 est. pop. 2,200,000), capital of Cuba, W Cuba; largest city and chief port of the West Indies and one of the oldest cities...

jasper, type of quartz

(Encyclopedia)jasper, opaque, impure cryptocrystalline quartz, usually red, but also yellow, green, and grayish blue. It is used as a gem. Ribbon jasper has the colors in stripes. ...

rash

(Encyclopedia)rash, nonspecific term for an eruption of the skin. It may result from skin allergy, skin irritation, or skin disease, or it may be a symptom of a systemic disease like measles, smallpox, or scarlet f...

distemper

(Encyclopedia)distemper, in veterinary medicine, highly contagious, catarrhal, often fatal disease of dogs. It also affects wolves, foxes, mink, raccoons, and ferrets. Distemper is caused by a filtrable virus that ...

Dorset, Marion

(Encyclopedia)Dorset, Marion dôrˈsət [key], 1872–1935, American biochemist, b. Columbia, Tenn.; grad. Univ. of Tenn. (B.S., 1893) and Columbian (now George Washington) Univ. (M.D. 1896). He began working as a ...

sneeze

(Encyclopedia)sneeze, involuntary violent expiration of air through the nose and mouth. It results from stimulation of the nervous system in the nose, causing sudden contraction of the muscles of expiration. The st...

schistosomiasis

(Encyclopedia)schistosomiasis bĭlˌhärzīˈəsĭs [key], or snail fever, parasitic disease caused by blood flukes, trematode worms of the genus Schistosoma. Three species are human parasites: S. mansoni, S. japon...

quinine

(Encyclopedia)quinine kwīˈnīnˌ, kwĭnēnˈ [key], white crystalline alkaloid with a bitter taste. Before the development of more effective synthetic drugs such as quinacrine, chloroquine, and primaquine, quinin...