Medical Dictionary Definitions A-Z List
Medical Dictionary Definitions A - Z - «L»:
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Laughing gas
Laughing gas: Nitrous oxide, a gas that can cause general anesthesia. Nitrous oxide is sometimes given in the company of other anesthetic agents but it is never used today as the only anesthetic agent because the concentration of nitrous oxide needed to produce anesthesia is close to the concentrati...
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Launois-Bensaude syndrome
Launois-Bensaude syndrome: A disorder characterized by painless symmetrical diffuse deposits of fat beneath the skin of the neck, upper trunk, arms and legs.
The condition is thought to be genetic although its exact mode of inheritance is uncertain; it may be a mitochondrial DNA disease. It frequen...
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Lauterbur
Lauterbur: See: Lauterbur, Paul C....
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Lauterbur, Paul C.
Lauterbur, Paul C.: American scientist (1929-) who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Sir Peter Mansfield for discoveries concerning "magnetic resonance imaging." (Magnetic resonance imaging is better known perhaps as MRI). Lauterbur did his work first at the State Universit...
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Lavage
Lavage: Washing out. Gastric lavage is washing
out the stomach,
for example, to remove drugs or poisons....
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LAVH
LAVH: Laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy, a procedure using laparoscopic techniques to remove the uterus (womb) and/or tubes and ovaries through the vagina (birth canal).
In LAVH, several small incisions (cuts) are made in the abdominal wall through which slender metal tubes known as "trocar...
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Law, Hardy-Weinberg
Law, Hardy-Weinberg: Basic
concept in population genetics discovered independently in
1908 by the great English mathematician G(odfrey) H(arold)
Hardy and Wilhelm Weinberg, a physician in Germany. The
Hardy-Weinberg law is a cornerstone of clinical genetics.
(In technical terms, The Hardy-Wein...
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Lawson Wilkins
Lawson Wilkins: See: Wilkins, Lawson....
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Laxative
Laxative: Something that
loosens the bowels. Used to combat constipation (and
sometimes overused, producing diarrhea). The word
"laxative" comes from the Latin "laxare" meaning "to open,
widen, extend, release." ...
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Lay midwife
Lay midwife: A midwife who has entered the
profession as an apprentice to a practicing midwife rather
than attending a formal school program....
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Laying on of hands
Laying on of hands: In alternative medicine, an ancient method of healing by touching a person with the hands or palms, usually on the head, shoulders, or waist. Also called contact healing. See also: Therapeutic touch....
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Laynx, pneumatic
Larynx, pneumatic: See: Pneumatic larynx....
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Lazy eye
Lazy eye: An eye that diverges in gaze. A lazy eye is formally called strabismus. A lazy eye (strabismus) can be due to esotropia (cross-eyed) or to exotropia (wall-eyed). The danger of the condition is that the brain comes in time to rely more on one eye than the other and that part of the brain ci...
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lb.
lb.: The abbreviation for pound, the measure of
weight, lb. (plural: lb. or lbs.) stands for
"libra" (Latin for pound)....
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LCHAD deficiency
LCHAD deficiency: Acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP) has been found to be associated in some cases with an abnormality of fatty-acid metabolism. This abnormality is a deficiency of the enzyme long-chain-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenease (LCHAD).
The mother (and father) have 50% of normal LCHAD ac...
