Category: Cb-Ch

  • Chiropractic

    A system of diagnosis and treatment based on the concept that the nervous system coordinates all of the body’s functions, and that disease results from a lack of normal nerve function. Chiropractic employs manipulation and adjustment of body structures, such as the spinal column, so that pressure on nerves coming from the spinal cord due to displacement (subluxation) of…

  • Chinese restaurant syndrome

    A syndrome first described in 1968 in people who had eaten Chinese food on which MSG (monosodium glutamate) had been lavished. The syndrome only seems to occur in some people. Their symptoms may include headache, throbbing of the head, dizziness, lightheadedness, a feeling of facial pressure, tightness of the jaw, burning or tingling sensations over parts of the…

  • Chin

    Medically, the mentum. The lower portion of the face below the lower lip including the prominence of the lower jaw and the line of fusion of the two separate halves of the jawbone (mandible). This line of fusion (called the symphysis menti) encloses a triangular area at tip of the chin (termed the mental protuberance).…

  • Chimera

    In medicine, a person composed of two genetically distinct types of cells. Human chimeras were first discovered with the advent of blood typing when it was found that some people had more than one blood type. Most of them proved to be “blood chimeras” — non-identical twins who shared a blood supply in the uterus. Those…

  • Chills

    Chills: feelings of coldness accompanied by shivering. Chills may develop after exposure to a cold environment or may accompany a fever.

  • Childhood

    (1) The time for a boy or girl from birth until he or she is an adult. (2) The more circumscribed period of time from infancy to the onset of puberty. During childhood, the potential of a unique human person must be nurtured by parents or parent figures.

  • Childbed fever

    Fever due to an infection after childbirth, usually of the placental site within the uterus. If the infection involves the bloodstream, it constitutes puerperal sepsis. Childbed fever was once a common cause of death for women of childbearing age, but it is now comparatively rare in the developed world due to improved sanitary practices in midwifery and obstetrics. Also known…

  • Child health

    The care and treatment of children. Child health is the purview of pediatrics, which became a medical specialty in the mid-nineteenth century. Before that time the care and treatment of childhood diseases were included within such areas as general medicine, obstetrics, and midwifery.

  • Chikungunya virus

    A virus that causes a disease resembling dengue fever, seen mainly in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. The Chikungunya virus is an arbovirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The most prominent frequent feature is severe arthritis with joint pain (arthralgia), and swelling. Chikungunya fever was first described in epidemic form in East Africa in 1952-1953. The virus is…

  • Chickenpox

    A highly infectious viral disease also known medically as varicella — in many countries, this disease is always called “varicella” — that causes a blister-like rash, itching, fatigue and fever. The rash crops up first on the face and trunk and can spread over the entire body resulting in 250 to 500 itchy blisters. Chickenpox is highly infectious.…