Starvation, condition in which deprivation of food has forced the body to feed on itself. Causes are famine, fasting, malnutrition, or abnormalities of the mucosal lining of the digestive syst...

Williams, Roger John, 1893–1988, American chemist, b. India, grad. Univ. of Redlands, Redlands, Calif. (B.S., 1914), Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1919; brother of the chemist Robert R. Williams, Jr...

Aflatoxins, a group of secondary metabolites that are cancer-causing byproducts of a mold that grows on nuts and grains, particularly peanuts. Although aflatoxin is most commonly produced when...

Baldness, thinning or loss of hair as a result of illness, functional disorder, or hereditary disposition; also known as alopecia. Male pattern baldness, a genetic trait, is the most common ca...

Fracture, breaking of a bone. A simple fracture is one in which there is no contact of the broken bone with the outer air, i.e., the overlying tissues are intact. In a comminuted fracture the ...

Concentration camp, a detention site outside the normal prison system created for military or political purposes to confine, terrorize, and, in some cases, kill civilians. The term was first u...

Biafra, Republic of, secessionist state of W Africa, in existence from May 30, 1967, to Jan. 15, 1970. At the outset Biafra comprised, roughly, the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers stat...

Cirrhosis, degeneration of tissue in an organ resulting in fibrosis, with nodule and scar formation. The term is most often used in relation to the liver, because that organ is most often invo...

Cystic fibrosis, inherited disorder of the exocrine glands (see gland), affecting children and young people; median survival is 25 years in females and 30 years in males. It is caused by a gen...

Defoliant, any one of several chemical compounds that, when applied to plants, can alter their metabolism, causing the leaves to drop off. In agriculture defoliants are used to eliminate the l...