Medical Dictionary Definitions A-Z List
Medical Dictionary Definitions A - Z - «M»:
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Monte Carlo simulation
Monte Carlo simulation: A statistical method used in biomedical research, involving computer simulation in which data are randomly shuffled many different times, enabling assessment of the probabilities of certain known outcomes....
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Montgomery, William W.
Montgomery, William W.: Pioneering American otolaryngologist who developed many techniques used in surgery on the throat and the vocal cords. Dr. Montgomery operated on kings and queens, celebrities and the less-celebrated at the Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary. He wrote "Surgery of the Upper Respirator...
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Moonflower
Moonflower: An hallucinogenic but poisonous plant known scientifically as Datura that has white flowers that bloom at night. Moonflowers contain scopolamine and hyoscyamine, both of which can cause anticholinergic poisoning. Symptoms occur typically within an hour after ingestion and continue for 2...
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Moral behavior center
Moral behavior center: An area of the brain in what is known as the prefrontal cortex. Children who suffer damage before 16 months of age to the prefrontal cortex in the front of the brain tend later to display pathological behavior problems. From such cases, it has been inferred that the area damag...
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Moraxella kingae
Moraxella kingae: See: Kingella kingae....
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Morbid jealousy
Morbid jealousy: See: Othello syndrome....
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Morbidity
Morbidity: Illness, disease. ...
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Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Known for short as MMWR, this is a key weekly scientific publication prepared and published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC).
MMWR contains data and reports on specific health and safety topics. The data are on specific diseases ...
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Morbilli
Morbilli: Another name for
measles, an acute highly contagious viral disease with
fever, runny nose, cough, red eyes, and a spreading skin rash. Also known as rubeola, it is a potentially disastrous disease and can be complicated by ear
infections, pneumonia, encephalitis (that can cause
...
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Morbus gallicus
Morbus gallicus: The French disease. Syphilis. The name "syphilis" was coined by Hieronymus Fracastorius
(Girolamo Fracastoro). Fracastorius was a true Renaissance man; he
wrote on the temperature of wines, the rise of the Nile, poetry, the
mind, and the soul; he was an astronomer, geographer, bo...
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Mordant
Mordant: A substance capable of deepening the reaction to a stain (as in the pathology laboratory); incisive; burning or pungent; and so, by extension, biting and caustic in thought, manner, or style.
The word "mordant" has some bite to it since it comes from the Latin "mordere", the infinitive of t...
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Morgagni's tubercle
Morgagni's tubercle: See: Olfactory bulb....
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Morgue
Morgue: A place where bodies of the dead are kept
before autopsy, funeral, or burial. The first Morgue was in Paris.
In the 1880s the word morgue entered English
to mean a mortuary. ...
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Morning glory syndrome
Morning glory syndrome: A birth defect of the optic nerve (the nerve to the eye) in which there is a coloboma (cleft) of the optic disc. The coloboma results in a funnel-shaped optic nerve head with a white dot in the center, an elevated ring of pigment around the disk, and vessels radiating out fr...
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Morning sickness
Morning sickness: Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy.
Morning sickness is a misnomer, because it can occur at any time of the day (though not at night during sleep) and it is not a sickness. It is a normal characteristic of early pregnancy.
Morning sickness is now believed to be a good thing since it...
