What is "end organ"

End \End\ ([e^]nd), n. [OE. & AS. ende; akin to OS. endi, D. einde, eind, OHG. enti, G. ende, Icel. endir, endi, Sw. ["a]nde, Dan. ende, Goth. andeis, Skr. anta. [root]208. Cf. Ante-, Anti-, Answer.]

1. The extreme or last point or part of any material thing considered lengthwise (the extremity of breadth being side); hence, extremity, in general; the concluding part; termination; close; limit; as, the end of a field, line, pole, road; the end of a year, of a discourse; put an end to pain; -- opposed to beginning, when used of anything having a first part.

   Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.
   --Eccl. vii. 8.

2. Point beyond which no procession can be made; conclusion; issue; result, whether successful or otherwise; conclusive event; consequence.

   My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
   --Shak.

   O that a man might know The end of this day's business ere it come!
   --Shak.

3. Termination of being; death; destruction; extermination; also, cause of death or destruction.

   Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
   --Pope.

   Confound your hidden falsehood, and award Either of you to be the other's end.
   --Shak.

   I shall see an end of him.
   --Shak.

4. The object aimed at in any effort considered as the close and effect of exertion; ppurpose; intention; aim; as, to labor for private or public ends.

   Losing her, the end of living lose.
   --Dryden.

   When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end.
   --Coleridge.

5. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap; as, odds and ends.

   I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
   --Shak.

6. (Carpet Manuf.) One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet. An end.

   1. On end; upright; erect; endways.
      --Spenser

   2. To the end; continuously. [Obs.]
      --Richardson.

      End bulb (Anat.), one of the bulblike bodies in which some sensory nerve fibers end in certain parts of the skin and mucous membranes; -- also called end corpuscles.

      End fly, a bobfly.

      End for end, one end for the other; in reversed order.

      End man, the last man in a row; one of the two men at the extremities of a line of minstrels.

      End on (Naut.), bow foremost.

      End organ (Anat.), the structure in which a nerve fiber ends, either peripherally or centrally.

      End plate (Anat.), one of the flat expansions in which motor nerve fibers terminate on muscular fibers.

      End play (Mach.), movement endwise, or room for such movement.

      End stone (Horol.), one of the two plates of a jewel in a timepiece; the part that limits the pivot's end play.

      Ends of the earth, the remotest regions of the earth.

      In the end, finally.
      --Shak.

      On end, upright; erect.

      To the end, in order.
      --Bacon.

      To make both ends meet, to live within one's income.
      --Fuller.

      To put an end to, to destroy.

n. a specialized structure at the peripheral end of some motor or sensory nerve fibers

The term end organ or end-organ has two meanings in medicine:

• A small organ at the terminal end of a nerve conduction pathway
  • Bulbous corpuscle (Ruffini corpuscle end-organ)
  • Tactile corpuscle (Meissner corpuscle end-organ)
  • Merkel nerve ending (Merkel corpuscle end-organ)
  • Neuromuscular junction (motor end-organ)
  • Lamellar corpuscle (Pacinian corpuscle end-organ)
• The ultimately affected organ in a chain of events, such as a disease process (pathophysiology) or a drug's mechanism of action (sometimes called a target organ in this sense)
  • • End organ damage, disease of such organs
      • Ambulatory blood pressure § Target organ damage
      • Sepsis § End-organ dysfunction
      • HFE hereditary haemochromatosis § End-organ damage