Crossword clues for diphtheria
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Diphtheria \Diph*the"ri*a\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. ? leather (hence taken in the sense of membrane): cf. ? to make soft, L. depsere to knead.] (Med.) A very dangerous contagious disease in which the air passages, and especially the throat, become coated with a false membrane, produced by the solidification of an inflammatory exudation. Cf. Group.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
from French diphthérie, coined 1857 by physician Pierre Bretonneau (1778-1862) from Greek diphthera "prepared hide, leather," which is of unknown origin; the disease so called for the tough membrane that forms in the throat. Bretonneau's earlier name for it was diphthérite, anglicized as diphtheritis (1826). Formerly known in England as the Boulogne sore throat, because it spread from France.
Wiktionary
n. (context pathology English) A highly infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract characterised by a sore throat, fever, and difficulty breathing, its symptoms being due to a potent toxin excreted by the infecting agent (taxlink Corynebacterium diphtheriae species noshow=1).
WordNet
n. acute contagious infection caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae; marked by the formation of a false membrane in the throat and other air passages causing difficulty in breathing
Wikipedia
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Signs and symptoms may vary from mild to severe. They usually start two to five days after exposure. Symptoms often come on fairly gradually beginning with a sore throat and fever. In severe cases a grey or white patch develops in the throat. This can block the airway and create a barking cough as in croup. The neck may swell in part due to large lymph nodes. A form of diphtheria that involves the skin, eyes, or genitals also exists. Complications may include myocarditis, inflammation of nerves, kidney problems, and bleeding problems due to low blood platelets. Myocarditis may result in an abnormal heart rate and inflammation of the nerves may result in paralysis.
Diphtheria is usually spread between people by direct contact or through the air. It may also be spread by contaminated objects. Some people carry the bacteria without having symptoms, but can still spread the disease to others. There are three main types of C. diphtheriae causing different severities of disease. The symptoms are due to a toxin produced by the bacteria. Diagnosis can often be made based on the appearance of the throat with confirmation by culture. Previous infection may not prevent against future infection.
A vaccine, known as diphtheria toxoid, is effective for prevention and available in a number of formulations. Three or four doses, given along with tetanus toxoid and acellular pertussis vaccine, are recommended during childhood. Further doses are recommended every ten years. Protection can be verified by measuring the antitoxin level in the blood. Treatment is with the antibiotic erythromycin or penicillin G. These antibiotics may also be used for prevention in those who have been exposed to the infection. A surgical procedure known as a tracheostomy is sometimes needed to open the airway in severe cases.
In 2013, 4,700 cases were officially reported, down from nearly 100,000 in 1980. It is believed, however, that about a million cases occurred per year before the 1980s. It currently occurs most often in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Indonesia. In 2013, it resulted in 3,300 deaths down from 8,000 deaths in 1990. In areas where it is still common, children are most affected. It is rare in the developed world due to widespread vaccination. In the United States 57 cases were reported between 1980 and 2004. Death occurs in between 5% and 10% of those affected. The disease was first described in the 5th century BC by Hippocrates. The bacterium was discovered in 1882 by Edwin Klebs.
Usage examples of "diphtheria".
Koch set to work, alone, for Loeffler had set out to track down the microbe of diphtheria and Gaffky was busy trying to find the sub-visible author of typhoid fever.
If those beasts come down with a disease exactly like human diphtheria, then .
In five days they were dead, with exactly those symptoms their brothers had, after injections of the living diphtheria bacilli.
Staggering about, and dreadfully straggly looking beasts they were, but they were getting better from diphtheria, these creatures whose untreated companions had died days before.
He took these creatures and shot an enormous dose of diphtheria bacilli into them.
He mixed this, in a glass tube, with a large amount of the poisonous soup in which the diphtheria microbes had grown.
He mixed diphtheria poison with the serum of a healthy guinea-pig who was not immune, who had never had diphtheria or been cured from it either, and this serum did not hinder one bit the murderous action of the poison.
Like some victorious general swept on by the momentum of his first bloody success, he began shooting diphtheria microbes, and iodine tri-chloride, and the poison of diphtheria microbes, into rabbits, into sheep, into dogs.
On the night of Christmas, a child desperately sick with diphtheria cried and kicked a little as the needle of the first syringe full of antitoxin slid under its tender skin.
On the first of February, 1894, Roux of the narrow chest and hatchet face and black skull cap, walked into the diphtheria ward of the Hospital for sick children, carrying bottles of his straw-colored, miracle-working stuff.
He began his merciful and maybe life-saving injections, and every one of the more than three hundred threatened children who came into the hospital during the next five months received good doses of the diphtheria antitoxin.
Buda-Pesth did not think of figures and they carried home the tidings of the antitoxin to all corners of the world, in a few years the antitoxin treatment of diphtheria became orthodox, and now there is not one doctor out of a thousand who will not swear that this antitoxin is a beautiful cure.
I can only hope, if another wave of the dreadful diphtheria of the eighties sweeps over the world again, I can only hope that Roux was right.
Park, and all over America, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of babies and school-children are being ingeniously and safely turned into so many small factories for the making of antitoxin, so that they will never get diphtheria at all.
Institute of Robert Koch in Berlin, in those momentous days when Behring was massacring guinea-pigs to save babies from diphtheria and the Japanese Kitasato was doing miraculous things to mice with lockjaw.