Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

A test for colour vision, introduced by a Japanese doctor, comprising several plates with round dots of different colours and sizes. It is also the name of a type of blood test for syphilis.  

A stroke that occurs when the flow of blood to a part of the brain is interrupted by a partial or complete thrombosis of the supplying artery or arteries, or by a clot of blood that has detached itself from elsewhere in the circulatory system for instance, a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and blocked a…

A metal which is an essential constituent of the red blood corpuscles, where it is present in the form of haemoglobin. It is also present in muscle as myoglobin, and in certain respiratory pigments which are essential to the life of many tissues in the body. Iron is absorbed principally in the upper part of…

The operation by which a hole is made in the itis of the eye as, for example, in the treatment of glaucoma or as part of cataract surgery.  

Ionization means the breaking up of a substance in solution into its constituent.  

A non-metallic element which is found largely in seaweed. The body contains about 30 mg, largely concentrated in the thyroid gland where it is used to synthesise thyroid hormones. Iodine has a highly irritating action and, when applied to the skin, stains the latter dark brown and causes it to peel off in flakes, while…

Salts of iodine, those which are especially used in medicine being the iodide of potassium and iodide of sodium. They are used to assist in providing a supply of iodine in patients with goitre, or in individuals who live in an area where goitre is liable to occur because of a deficiency of IODINE in…

A method of helping conception to occur when a man is infertile because his sperm cannot penetrate either the cervical mucus at the entrance of the uterus or the barriers that surround the ovum. The sperm, often treated chemically beforehand to increase motility, are injected directly into the uterus via the vagina.  

This technique is used to deal with male infertility when in vitro fertilization is not possible because the man has very few motile, normal sperm, or when previous attempts at IVF have not produced a fertilized embryo. ICSI requires a single sperm which is injected directly into the cytoplasm of an egg previously retrieved from…

A narrowed or blocked coronary artery can compromise the blood supply to the heart muscle. A supportive tube or stent passed into each affected artery can restore the blood supply. The stent has a heparin coating to stop blood clots from forming. Since they were first performed in 1987, intracoronary stents have cut the re-blockage…