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papaverine

(Encyclopedia)papaverine pəpăvˈərēn [key], alkaloid found in opium that acts as a muscle relaxant and vasodilator. The drug relaxes the smooth muscle of the larger blood vessels and is used to increase the blo...

Bovet, Daniele

(Encyclopedia)Bovet, Daniele bōvāˈ [key], 1907–92, Italian pharmacologist, b. Switzerland, D.Sc. Univ. of Geneva, 1929. From 1929 to 1947 he was a researcher and then head of the laboratory of therapeutic chem...

emetic

(Encyclopedia)emetic əmĕtˈĭk [key], substance that produces vomiting. Direct, or gastric, emetics, which act directly on the stomach, include syrup of ipecac, sulfate of zinc or copper, alum, ammonium carbonate...

Agre, Peter Courtland

(Encyclopedia)Agre, Peter Courtland, 1949–, American molecular biologist, b. Northfield, Minn., M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1974. From 1981 to 2005, Agre taught at Johns Hopkins in the departments of medicine and cell bi...

thrombolytic drug

(Encyclopedia)thrombolytic drug thrŏmˌbəlĭtˈĭk [key] or clot-dissolving drug, substance, such as streptokinase or tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), that causes the breakdown of blood clots (see thrombosis) ...

Prusiner, Stanley Ben

(Encyclopedia)Prusiner, Stanley Ben, 1942–, American neurologist, b. Des Moines, Iowa, M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 1968. Prusiner has been a professor at the Univ. of California, San Francisco ...

fetal tissue implant

(Encyclopedia)fetal tissue implant or fetal cell therapy, implantation of tissue from a fetus into a patient. In experimental procedures, fetal brain tissue has been implanted in the brains of patients with Parkins...

Gestalt

(Encyclopedia)Gestalt gəshtältˈ [key] [Ger.,=form], school of psychology that interprets phenomena as organized wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the whole is greater than the ...

Haldane, John Scott

(Encyclopedia)Haldane, John Scott, 1860–1936, British scientist, b. Edinburgh; father of John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. He made many important contributions to mine safety, investigating principally the action of...

Erasistratus

(Encyclopedia)Erasistratus ĕrəsĭsˈtrətəs [key], fl. 3d cent. b.c., Greek physician, b. Chios. He was the leader of a school of medicine in Alexandria, and his works were influential until the 4th cent. a.d. H...