Infectious Disease Term Glossary

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==Terms: ==

• Abdominal: Relating to the lower trunk, usually the front.
• Abscess: A swelling in a body tissue, filled with pus and often containing a disease organism.
• Alimentary: Relating to the entire system for receiving and processing food. The system is often referred to as the alimentary canal.
• Antibody: A substance produced in the blood to counter toxins and invading organisms.
• Asphyxia: A lack of oxygen in the blood; suffocation.
• Bacteria: Two types: free-living, normal inhabitants (normal flora); pathogens which cause illness
• Bronchial: Relating to the air passages from the throat to the lungs.
• Capillaries: Delicate blood vessels forming a dense network between the arteries and the veins. The interchange of cellular oxygen, nutrients, and waste products takes place in the capilliary ‘beds’.
• Cerebral: Relating to the brain.
• Circulatory: Relating to the transportation of blood around the body.
• Colonization: Presence of a germ in or on you without disease
• Cutaneous: Relating to the skin.
• Defecation: The discharge of faeces from the body.
• Dehydration: An excessive loss of water from the tissues of the body.
• Diarrhoea/diarrhea: Frequent and copious discharges of abnormally liquid waste products from the anus.
• Epidemic: A rapid spread of a disease affecting a large number of people in a particular locality at the same time.
• Faeces/feces: Waste matter discharged from the body through the anus.
• Febrile: Relating to a fever; feverish.
• Fever: An abnormally high body temperature accompanied by a fast pulse rate. The word is also used in describing any disease which produces a symptomatic high body temperature.
• Fungi: Molds & yeasts. Colonize (live on or in a person) & are pathogens
• Gut: The lower part of the alimentary canal, between the stomach and the anus. An alternative term would be the intestines.
• Haemorrhage/hemorrhage: The loss of blood from a ruptured blood vessel.
• Incubation: Essentially refers to the period between a pathogenic organism entering the body and the beginning of its effects on the body.
• Infection: An attack by a pathogenic organism. A germ causing an illness. Your body will react by making antibodies.
• Infectivity: The ability of a disease to spread.
• Inflammation:' The reaction of living tissue to an attack by a pathogenic organism, characterized by heat, a swelling, and pain.
• Inhalation: The process by which air is drawn into the lungs.
• Inoculation: (as a preventative measure) The controlled introduction into the body, usually through the skin, of material containing specific pathogenic organisms or their products in order to stimulate an immunity to a particular disease.
• Intestinal: Relating to the sections of the alimentary canal defined by the gut.
• Intoxication: Illness due to a toxin made by a germ
• Jaundiced: A yellowing of the skin due to an excess of bile pigments in the blood. (Bile, a product of the liver, is normally passed into the intestine.)
• Latent infection: A germ (most often a virus) in a resting state
• Lesion: A structural change in any part of the body resulting from injury or as a consequence of disease. When appearing on the skin, a lesion is sometimes called a sore.
• Lymph node: One of numerous centres in the body where disease organisms may be filtered out from the blood.
• Micro-organism: An organism requiring a microscope to be seen.
• Motions: The discharge of waste products from the intestines.
• Mucous membrane: A membrane, or lining, which protects the various passages of the body that are exposed to the external environment by secreting a slimy substance called mucus.
• Normal Flora: Bacteria that live on or in a person normally
• Pandemic: A disease epidemic which affects population over a wide geographical area. When applied to plague, the term may refer to a particular cyclic series of widespread epidemics.
• Parasites: Forms range from single cells (amoeba, Protozoa) to worms
• Pathogen: A germ that can cause a disease
• Peripheral nerves: The nerves of the skull and the spine.
• Pneumonia: An inflammation of the lung which inhibits the transfer of oxygen to the blood. Sometimes the lung begins to fill with liquid. If both lungs are affected then the situation is one of double pneumonia.
• Prions: Infectious proteins. The smallest known infectious agents.
• Pulmonary: Relating to the lungs.
• Pus A viscous fluid containing dead matter such as white blood cells, bacteria, and tissue.
• Reactivation: The latent germ wakes up & reproduces.
• Recrudescence: The reappearance of a disease, especially after a period of dormancy.
• Respiratory: Relating to breathing.
• Secondary infection: An attack by a pathogenic organism as a result of a weakness or damage caused by an already established organism.
• Septicaemia/Septicemia: Commonly known as blood poisoning, septicemia is due to the multiplication of micro-organisms in the blood, or to a sustained entry of large numbers of them from a focus of infection. This condition rapidly spreads the organisms to all parts of the body.
• Shock: A collapse of the body’s systems caused by a fall in the volume of circulating blood. The term can also refer to a temporary state of psychological overburdening.
• Suffocation: A lack of oxygen caused by a mechanical obstruction to the passage of air from the atmosphere to the lungs.
• Toxin: A poisonous substance produced by a pathogenic micro-organism.
• Tubercle: A small round swelling of tissue within the body, especially when related to tuberculosis. The term can also refer to a small protuberance on a bone.
• Ulceration: A disintegration of the skin or mucous membrane to cause a sore which is usually slow to heal.
• Urine: Waste products of the body excreted by the kidneys as a fluid.
• Vaccination: The term was coined by Edward Jenner to describe the inoculation of material from a cowpox lesion in order to stimulate a resistance to smallpox. Louis Pasteur expanded the meaning to cover any preventative inoculation.
• Venereal: In the medical sense, relating to a disease transmitted by sexual intercourse.
• Viruses: Very small. Viruses take over your cells to reproduce themselves

Originally from: Infectious Diseases in History, Glossary

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