Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

This is trench mouth, a progressive painful infection with ulceration, swelling and sloughing off of dead tissue from the mouth and throat due to the spread of infection from the gums. Certain germs (including fusiform bacteria and spirochetes) have been thought to be involved, but the full story behind this long-known disease is still not…

Common in most parts of the world including the Southern and Southwestern U.S., velvet ants are not true ants but rather parasitic wasps. Their sting can trigger allergic reactions. Avoidance, prompt treatment and, in selected cases, allergy injection therapy are useful.

Originally from S. America. Among the worst insect pests ever to invade the U.S. Red or yellowish ants of small-to-medium size with a severe sting that burns like fire. They normally feed on small insects but, with denser populations, they eat seeds and seedling plants, damage grain and vegetable crops, invade kitchens, attack newly hatched poultry and…

A general term for a nearly closed cavity or chamber. For example, the antrum of the stomach (gastric antrum) is a portion before the outlet, which is lined by mucosa and does not produce acid. The paranasal sinuses can be referred to as the frontal antrum, ethmoid antrum, and maxillary antrum.

A study used to detect and record the contractions of the muscles of the stomach and duodenum in order to diagnose motility disorders of the stomach and small intestine. A tube is passed through the nose, throat, esophagus, and stomach, until the tip lies in the small intestine. The tube senses when the muscles of…

1. The substitution of a title for a proper name, as in addressing a physician as “Doctor” or a nurse as “Nurse.”2. The substitution of a personal name for a noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a geneticist a Mendelist (after Gregor Mendel, who discovered the principles of inheritance).The word…

Concerning, pertaining to, or characteristic of antonomasia. 1. The substitution of a title for a proper name, as in addressing a physician as “Doctor” or a nurse as “Nurse.”2. The substitution of a personal name for a noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a geneticist a Mendelist (after Gregor Mendel,…

1. The substitution of a title for a proper name, as in addressing a physician as “Doctor” or a nurse as “Nurse.”2. The substitution of a personal name for a noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a geneticist a Mendelist (after Gregor Mendel, who discovered the principles of inheritance).The word…

Italian anatomist and pathologist, physician and surgeon (1666-1723), perhaps best known for the Valsalva maneuver. Valsalva described and depicted even the smallest muscles and nerves of the ear, subdividing the ear into its internal, middle, and external parts, and he showed an original method of inflating the middle ear (Valsalva maneuver). Valsalva coined the term…

(1860-1904) “Russia’s most famous physician” and greatest dramatist. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov graduated from the Medical Faculty of Moscow University in 1884 and practiced medicine throughout much of his short remaining life. In 1890 Chekhov on his own undertook a medical census of the convicts in the Sakhalin Island penal colony. During the famine in 1891-92…