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#38792 08/19/01 01:40 PM
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wwh Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Forgive me another medical school anecdote. One of the professors of medicine told about going in 1940 to give a medical lecture about heart disease at a meeting of a county medical society in western Massachusetts.
After the lecture, a member of the audience who looked as old as Methuselah came up to him, and in a mildly patronising tone inquired:" Young fella, your talk was in the main quite interesting. But what was this diastole and systole you kept talking about?".

Diastole is also a rhetorical term for shifting the accent of a multisyllable word to fit the meter of a verse.

di[as[to[le 7dj as4t! lc#8
n.
5LL < Gr diastolc, expansion, dilatation < diastellein, to separate, dilate < dia3, apart + stellein, to put: see LOCUS6 the usual rhythmic dilatation of the heart, esp. of the ventricles, following each contraction (systole), during which the heart muscle relaxes and the chambers fill with blood
diastolic
adj.



#38793 08/20/01 01:05 AM
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...And both senses have to do with rhythm. Cool, Dr. Bill.


#38794 08/20/01 04:11 PM
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>But what was this diastole and systole you kept talking about?

Beats me.



TEd
#38795 08/20/01 05:53 PM
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wwh Offline OP
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Beats you? Keeps you alive.



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