Category: Ga-Gh

Interjection used to wish “good health,” especially to someone who has sneezed. In this situation, Gesundheit is roughly equivalent to “God bless you.” In German “Gesundheit” means “health” (and “sanity”). Wishing “good health” was once thought to hold off the illness that might follow a sneeze. “God bless you” came into comparable usage to prevent the escape…

Fetal development period from the time of conception until birth. For humans, the full gestation period is normally 9 months. The word “gestation” comes from the Latin “gestare” meaning “to carry or to bear.”

A measure of child development devised by the American child psychologist and pediatrician Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) who founded the Clinic of Child Development at Yale in 1911 and directed it for many years. There he pioneered the use of motion-picture cameras to study the development of normal infants and young children. He filmed the children,…

Gerontology: the study of aging, including its social, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects. Gerontology is broader than geriatrics, which is the medical specialty devoted to treatment and care of older people (seniors health). The term is derived from the Greek geron, “old man” and -logia, “study of.”

A heritable change in the DNA that occurred in a germ cell (a cell destined to become an egg or in the sperm) or the zygote (the conceptus) at the single-cell stage. When transmitted to a child, a germline mutation is incorporated in every cell of their body. Germline mutations play a key role in genetic diseases. They play a role, too,…

1. A cell or group of cells (called a primordium) capable of developing into an organ, a part or an organism in its entirety. Eggs and sperm are germ cells. 2. A pathogenic a microorganism. A microbe capable of causing disease. The germ theory of disease held, correctly, that these minute bodies can cause disease. 3. The figurative source or wellspring. Dr. Watson told…

The branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in older people and the problems specific to aging. From the Greek “geron” meaning “old man” + “iatreia” meaning “the treatment of disease.”.

The branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in older people and the problems specific to aging. Also called geriatrics. From the Greek “geron” meaning “old man” + “iatreia” meaning “the treatment of disease.”.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease.

An abnormal and persistent fear of growing old. Sufferers of this fear experience undue anxiety about aging even though they may be in good health–physically, economically and otherwise. They may worry about the loss of their looks, the loss of independence, inactivity after retirement, impaired mobility, the onset of disease, and confinement in a nursing home. Modern…