bradycardia
n.
5< prec. + Gr kardia, HEART6 abnormally slow heartbeat: below 60 beats per minute for an adult

But what a lot of work it means for ER personnel.

Has many meanings. But you should see how many pages are devoted to it in biochemistry.
I remember a friend who was worried about "acid" in his diet. It would have taken me a week
to help him understand the stupidity of the quackery he believed.

bunion
n.
5< dial. (E Anglian) bunny < ME boni, swelling < OFr buigne: see BUN16 an inflammation and swelling of the bursa at the base of the big toe, with a thickening of the skin

All kinds of sites about this on Internet. I think it was far more common fifty years ago when
many people wore improper shoes, particularly leather ones.

Permit me to heresify here for a moment.

I would propose that the "normal" range of heartbeat is not 60-100 as usually practiced but rather 50 to 90.

Not that people can't be healthy outside the range (or get in trouble inside the range) but we would generally worry less if that slower range were accepted...

caliginous
adj.
5L caliginosus < caligo, darkness, gloom: for IE base see COLUMBARIUM6 [Archaic] dark; obscure

cassowary
n.,
pl. 3war#ies 5Malay kasuarj6 any of a family (Casuariidae) of large, flightless birds of Australia and New Guinea with a brightly colored, featherless neck and head: with the larger emus, they form a unique order (Casuariiformes) distinct from rheas and ostriches

celiac
adj.
5L coeliacus < Gr koiliakos < koilia: see 3COELE6 of or in the abdominal cavity

Coeliac disease is a condition caused by an inability to digest gluten, which often results in bowel
symptoms, weight loss or failure to gain weight, and lack of certain vitamins and minerals with
consequential problems such as anaemia and osteoporosis.

Symptoms

Diarrhoea, and bulky, smelly motions that float often occur in coeliac disease. This results in
less nutrients being absorbed from the bowel, and thus weight loss or failure to grow and put
on weight in children. Sufferers sometimes have a swollen or bloated belly.

cenogenesis
n.
5ceno3 (< Gr kainos: see 3CENE) + 3GENESIS6 the development of structures in the embryonic or larval stage of an organism that are adaptive and do not appear in the evolutionary history of its group: cf. PALINGENESIS
ce#no[ge[net$ic 73j! net4ik8
adj.

ciguatera
n.
5AmSp < cigua, a marine snail6 a type of food poisoning with severe gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms, caused by eating contaminated fish

cirrhosis
n.,
pl. 3ses# 73scz#8 5ModL < Gr kirrhos, tawny + 3OSIS: so named by R. T. H. La<nnec (1781-1826), Fr physician, because of the orange-yellow appearance of the diseased liver6 a degenerative disease in an organ of the body, esp. the liver, marked by excess formation of connective tissue and, usually, subsequent painful swelling
cir[rhot$ic 73r9t4ik8
adj.

A nasty penalty for having consumed too much liquour, and too little food. Especially booze on an
empty stomach.

Long, long time ago during the period of life in which I threw myself mightily into aerobics, my pulse rate was about 50 beats a minute when I was resting. My aerobics instructor told me that was a sign of health.

Was she correct?

Absolutely, so long as the rate increased a reasonable amount when you exercised. I used to have fun with the Army doctors. On physical, they would take my pulse, which would be around 58 to 60 or thereabouts. Then they would have me hop on one foot to see if pulse increased excessively. Mischievously I would inspire with epiglottis fixed, making my pulse actually slow noticeably. None of them ever caught on. If they had had a bit more time, when I had to breathe, pulse would have gone up
more than it would have had I not held my breath.

50 beats a minute when I was resting...was a sign of health.

Second the motion. Provided it comes from being well-conditioned rather than from other, pathological, causes. It's a highly positive survival trait. Think of it in athletes' terms: when you want to increas;e your activity your body needs to supply the tissues with more oxygen-carrying blood. That's known as "increasing the cardiac output," which is generally good (up to a point). There are only two ways to do it: make each stroke bigger, or make more of them. Making the heart bigger, if carried to the extreme, translates as "enlarged heart," which is not so good, leaving increasing the heart rate as the better alternative.

Now if your baseline heart rate is 75 and with effort you raise it to 150, your cardiac output has doubled, which is fine for your purpose. But when by dint of hard work and effective training you get your baseline down to 30, and now with effort you get it up to 150, your output has gone up by a factor of five, which is much better, and so you can do even more, or run even faster, or last even longer.

That's "why" people in great shape have low resting pulses, and world-class athletes like runners get them down to the forties and thirties.


Bill:

I, too, had fun with my Army induction doctors. Or tried to. When the stethoscope was placed on my chest, I held my breath, so he didn't hear anything. Didn't help. The chart entry said "normal breath sounds," and in I went nonetheless.

I ran into some other Army physicians later on who had all kinds of interesting stories to tell, about things like youngsters passing the induction physical with arms withered by polio, and other equally glaring idiocies. How we ever won the war is sometimes hard to understand. Oh yeah, in Vietnam we didn't actually, did we.

And yes, I was an Army Doctor myself for two years, so I can make as many disparaging remarks as I please.
--s/Wofahulicodoc, CAPT MC