Glossary

Author: Glossary

  • Tattoo

    Tattoo

    Design made on skin by puncturing the skin and adding pigment; typically, cannot be removed, washed away or erased without special techniques, sometimes including plastic surgery. Unless sterile surgical technique is used, transmission of diseases such as hepatitis or AIDS may occur. Traumatic tattooing refers to embedding of fine dirt particles in the skin following…

  • Tarsal gland

    Any of numerous tiny sebaceous glands lining the inner surfaces of the eyelids. Bacterial infection of a tarsal gland produces a stye; also called Meibomian gland. Glands in the eyelid that secrete a sebaceous substance that keeps the lids from adhering to each other.  

  • Target cell

    Abnormal red blood cell (erythrocyte) with a ringed appearance; associated with several types of anemia. An abnormal form of red blood cell (erythrocyte) in which the cell assumes the ringed appearance of a ‘target’ in stained blood films. Target cells are a feature of several types of anemia, including those due to iron deficiency and…

  • Tardive

    Late-occurring, especially in reference to symptoms of a disease. Characterized by lateness, especially pert, to a disease in which the characteristic sign or symptom appears late in the course of the disease.  

  • Tapeworm infection

    Intestinal infection caused by a species of parasitic tapeworm, usually the result of eating raw or undercooked meat or fish that is an intermediate host to the tapeworm or its larva. Symptoms include diarrhea and weight loss; diagnosis is made when worms and eggs are found in the stool.  

  • Tanning

    Process by which pigmentation of the skin darkens because of exposure to ultraviolet light.  

  • Takayasu’s arteritis

    Disorder characterized by an absence of pulse in both arms and in the carotid arteries, transient paraplegia, and facial muscle weakness and atrophy caused by progressive occlusion of the left subclavian and left common carotid arteries above the aortic arch; also called pulseless disease. A rare vasculitis of the aorta and its branches, marked by…

  • Systemic lupus erythematosis

    Chronic inflammatory disease of unknown cause, affecting women more frequently than men. Symptoms include arthritis, a red rash over the nose and cheeks (butterfly rash), fatigue, and weakness, followed by fever, photosensitivity, and skin lesions starting in the neck region and spreading to mucous membranes and other tissues, damaging the tissues involved. Glomerulonephritis, pericarditis, anemia,…

  • Swallowing

    Act of moving food from the mouth through the pharynx and esophagus to the stomach. The process by which food is transferred from the mouth to the esophagus; deglutition. In swallowing, the tongue is raised within the mouth to push the food back toward the throat, thus stimulating reflex actions in which the larynx at…

  • Susceptibility

    Condition of being easily affected by a disease-causing organism; condition of being more than normally vulnerable. The state of being receptive to infection or disease. A person’s receptivity to disease or infection. Susceptibility is influenced by several general human characteristics, such as the ability of the person’s immune system to respond to specific pathogens that…