Medical Terminology beginning with the letter E

<b>Eclampsy</b> – A form of toxemia (toxins, or poisons, in the blood) accompanying pregnancy, characterized by albuminuria (protein in the urine), by hypertension (high blood pressure), and by convulsions. In the last century, the term was used for any form of convulsion.
<b>Ecstasy</b> – A form of catalepsy characterixed by loss of reason.
<b>Edema</b> – Nephrosis; swelling of tissues. see Dropsy.
<b>Edema of lungs</b> – Congestive heart failure, a form of dropsy.
<b>Eel thing</b> – Erysipelas.
<b>Effluvia</b> – Exhalations or emanations, applied especially to those of noxious character. In the mid-nineteenth century, they were called “vapours” and distinguished into the contagious effluvia, such as rubeolar (measles); marsh effluvia, such as miasmata; and those arising from animals or vegetables, such as odors.
<b>Elephantiasis</b> – Gross enlargement of the body, especially the limbs, due to lymphatic obstruction by a nematode parasite transmitted by mosquitoes; a form of leprosy.
<b>Emphysema, pulmonary</b> – A chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs, characterized by abnormal enlargement of air spaces in the lungs and accompanied by destruction of the tissue lining the walls of the air sacs. By 1900 the condition was recognized as a chronic disease of the lungs associated with marked dyspnea (shortness of breath), hacking cough, defective aeration (oxygenation) of the blood, cyanosis (blue color of facial skin), and a full and rounded or “barrel-shaped” chest. This disease is now most commonly associated with tobacco smoking.
<b>Encephalitis</b> – Swelling of brain; aka sleeping sickness.
<b>Enteric fever</b> – see Typhoid fever.
<b>Enterocolitis</b> – Inflammation of the intestines.
<b>Enteritis</b> – Inflations of the bowels.
<b>Epilepsy</b> – A disorder of the nervous system, characterized either by mild, episodic loss of attention or sleepiness (petittnal) or by severe convulsions with loss of consciousness (grand mal). Synonyms: falling sickness, fits.
<b>Epistaxis</b> – Nose bleed.
<b>Erysipelas</b> – An acute, febrile, infectious disease, caused by a specific group of streptococcus bacterium and characterized by a diffusely spreading, deep-red inflammation of the skin or mucous membranes causing a rash with a well-defined margin; Contagious skin disease, due to infection of the blood with vesicular bulbous lesions. Synonyms: Rose, Saint Anthony’s Fire.
<b>Extravasted blood</b> – Rupture of a blood vessel.

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