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Jerez de la Frontera

(Encyclopedia)Jerez de la Frontera hārāth dā lä frōntāˈrä [key], city (1990 pop. 186,812), Cádiz prov., SW Spain, in Andalusia. Jerez is an important commercial center noted for its sherry and brandy. Its ...

MacBeth, George

(Encyclopedia)MacBeth, George, 1932–92, Scottish poet, grad. Oxford, 1955. He was until 1976 a producer for the BBC. His best poetry, such as The Broken Places (1963), often treats violent subjects in a combinati...

warfarin

(Encyclopedia)warfarin wôrˈfərĭn [key], anticoagulant used to treat blood clots. In large doses it causes bleeding, and in patients with genetic variations that increase sensitivity to the drug and decrease the...

Whipple, George Hoyt

(Encyclopedia)Whipple, George Hoyt, 1878–1976, American pathologist, b. Ashland, N.H., M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1905. He taught at Johns Hopkins (1909–14) and at the Univ. of California (1914–21) and was professor...

Prout, William

(Encyclopedia)Prout, William, 1785–1850, English chemist and physician. Prout's hypothesis, advanced in 1815–16, suggested that atomic weights of elements are multiples of that of hydrogen and that elements are...

congenital heart disease

(Encyclopedia)congenital heart disease, any defect in the heart present at birth. There is evidence that some congenital heart defects are inherited, but the cause of most cases is unknown. One known cause is infec...

antibody

(Encyclopedia)antibody, protein produced by the immune system (see immunity) in response to the presence in the body of antigens: foreign proteins or polysaccharides such as bacteria, bacterial toxins, viruses, or ...

Lord's Supper

(Encyclopedia)Lord's Supper, Protestant rite commemorating the Last Supper. In the Reformation the leaders generally rejected the traditional belief in the sacrament as a sacrifice and as an invisible miracle of th...

salivary glands

(Encyclopedia)salivary glands sălˈəvârˌē [key], in humans, three pairs of glands that secrete the alkaline digestive fluid, saliva, into the mouth. Most animals have salivary glands that resemble those in hum...

radiation sickness

(Encyclopedia)radiation sickness, harmful effect produced on body tissues by exposure to radioactive substances. The biological action of radiation is not fully understood, but it is believed that a disturbance in ...

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