Author: Glossary

  • Oak bark

    The external layer of woody plants of the genus Quercus, sometimes used by alternative medicine practitioners as an anti-inflammatory and antidiarrheal.  

  • Nysten’s law

    A law stating that rigor mortis begins with the muscles of mastication and progresses from the head down the body, affecting the legs and feet last.  

  • Voluntary nystagmus

    A rare type of pendular nystagmus in persons who have learned to oscillate their eyes rapidly, usually by extreme convergence.  

  • Vestibular nystagmus

    Nystagmus caused by disease of the vestibular apparatus of the ear, or due to normal stimuli produced when the semicircular canals are tested by rotating the body.  

  • Seesaw nystagmus

    Nystagmus in which the in-turning eye moves up and the opposite eye moves down, and then both eyes move in the opposite direction.  

  • Rotatory nystagmus

    Nystagmus in which eyes rotate about the visual axis.  

  • Rhythmic nystagmus

    Nystagmus in which the eyes move slowly in one direction and then are jerked back rapidly.  

  • Retraction nystagmus

    Nystagmus associated with the drawing of the eye backward into the orbit.  

  • Postrotatory nystagmus

    A form of vestibular nystagmus that occurs when the body is rotated and then the rotation is stopped. If, while sitting upright in a chair that can be swiveled, the body is rapidly rotated to the right, the nystagmus during rotation has its slow component to the left. When the rotation stops, the slow component…

  • Pendular nystagmus

    Nystagmus characterized by movement that is approx, equal in both directions. It is usually seen in those who have bilateral congenital absence of central vision or who lost it prior to the age of 2 years.