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Medford ... Megarian school
Medford
city, seat (1927) of Jackson county, southwestern Oregon, U.S., in the Rogue River valley, on Bear Creek. Founded in 1884 as a depot on the Oregon and California (now Southern ...
Medford
city, Middlesex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Mystic River just north of Boston. It was founded in 1630, when Mathew Cradock settled a plantation there; its English ...
Media
ancient country of northwestern Iran, generally corresponding to the modern regions of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and parts of Kermanshah. Media first appears in the texts of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III ...
Medias
city, Sibiu judet (county), central Romania, on the Tarnava Mare River. It was founded by German colonists in the 13th century on the site of a Roman camp called Media. ...
mediastinal emphysema
pocket of air surrounding the heart; it is usually the result of lung rupture. When the alveoli (air sacs) of the lungs rupture because of traumatic injury or lung disease, ...
mediastinitis
inflammation of the tissue around the heart, aortic artery, and entrance (hilum) to the lungs, located in the middle chest cavity. The mediastinum is essentially the space between the left ...
mediastinum
the anatomic region located between the lungs that contains all the principal tissues and organs of the chest except the lungs. It extends from the sternum, or breastbone, back to ...
mediation
a practice under which, in a conflict, the services of a third party are utilized to reduce the differences or to seek a solution. Mediation differs from "good offices" in ...
medical association
professional organization or learned society developed to promote high standards in medical education and practice, science, and ethics. The medical association also works to promote and protect the interests of ...
medical education
course of study directed toward imparting to persons seeking to become physicians the knowledge and skills required for the prevention and treatment of disease. It also develops the methods and ...
medical jurisprudence
science that deals with the relation and application of medical facts to legal problems. Medical persons giving legal evidence may appear before courts of law, administrative tribunals, inquests, licensing agencies, ...
medical jurisprudence
the branch of law dealing with various aspects of medicine, including the practices of caregivers and the rights of patients.
Medicare and Medicaid
two U.S. government programs that guarantee health insurance for the elderly and the poor, respectively. They were formally enacted in 1965 as amendments (Titles XVIII and XIX, respectively) to the ...
Medicean-Laurentian Library
collection of books and manuscripts gathered during the 15th century in Florence by Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent, both members of the Medici family. Part of the collection ...
Medici Chapel
chapel housing monuments to members of the Medici family, in the New Sacristy of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The funereal monuments were commissioned in 1520 by Pope ...
Medici Family
Italian bourgeois family that ruled Florence and, later, Tuscany, during most of the period from 1434 to 1737, except for two brief intervals (from 1494 to 1512 and from 1527 ...
Medici porcelain
first European soft-paste porcelain, made in Florence between about 1575 and 1587 in workshops under the patronage of Francis I (Francesco de' Medici). It is thought that the body of ...
Medici, Cosimo de'
founder of one of the main lines of the Medici family that ruled Florence from 1434 to 1537.
Medici, Giovanni de'
the most noted soldier of all the Medici.
Medici, Giuliano de', Duc De Nemours
ruler of Florence from 1512 to 1513, after the Medici were restored to power.
Medici, Ippolito de'
one of the pawns in the civil strife of Florence in the 1520s and 1530s.
Medici, Lorenzino de'
assassin of Alessandro, grand duke of Tuscany. He was one of the more noted writers of the Medici family.
Medici, Lorenzo de'
Florentine statesman, ruler, and patron of arts and letters, the most brilliant of the Medici. He ruled Florence with his younger brother, Giuliano (1453-78), from 1469 to 1478 and, after ...
Medici, Lorenzo di Piero de', Duca Di Urbino
ruler of Florence from 1513 to 1519, to whom Niccolo Machiavelli addressed his treatise The Prince, counselling him to accomplish the unity of Italy by arming the whole nation and ...
Medici, Piero di Cosimo de'
ruler of Florence for five years (1464-69), whose successes in war helped preserve the enormous prestige bequeathed by his father, Cosimo the Elder.
Medici, Piero di Lorenzo de'
son of Lorenzo the Magnificent who ruled in Florence for only two years (1492-94) before being expelled.
Medici, Villa
(c. 1540), important example of Mannerist architecture designed by Annibale Lippi and built in Rome for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano. It was later purchased by Ferdinando de' Medici and was ...
medicinal leech
any of certain leech species, particularly Hirudo medicinalis, once used in the treatment of human diseases. See leech.
medicinal poisoning
harmful effects on health of certain therapeutic drugs, resulting either from overdose or from the sensitivity of specific body tissues to regular doses (side effects).
medicine
the science concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease.
medicine
the practice concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease.
Medicine Bow Mountains
northwestern section of the Front Range, in the central Rocky Mountains, U.S. Comprising a generally dissected upland with an average height of 10,000 feet (3,050 m), the mountains run southeastward ...
Medicine Hat
city, southeastern Alberta, Canada. It lies at the foot of the Cypress Hills, along the South Saskatchewan River, 164 miles (264 km) southeast of Calgary. It originated as a settlement ...
Medicine Lodge
city, seat (1876) of Barber county, southern Kansas, U.S. It lies 70 miles (113 km) west-southwest of Wichita, along the Medicine Lodge River. The site was regarded as sacred by ...
medicine man
member of a nonliterate society who is knowledgeable about the magic potencies of various substances (medicines) and skilled in the rituals in which they are administered, particularly for healing. The ...
medicine society
in popular literature, any of various complex healing societies and rituals of many American Indian tribes. More correctly, the term is used as an alternative name for the Grand Medicine ...
medicine, history of
the development of the prevention and treatment of disease from prehistoric and ancient times to the 20th century.
Medill, Joseph
Canadian-born American editor and publisher who from 1855 built the Chicago Tribune into a powerful newspaper. He was the grandfather of three newspaper publishers: Robert R. McCormick ...
Medina
city located in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, about 100 miles (160 kilometres) inland from the Red Sea and 275 miles from Mecca by road. With Mecca, it ...
Medina del Campo, Treaty of
(1489), treaty between Spain and England, which, although never fully accepted by either side, established the dominating themes in Anglo-Spanish relations in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It ...
Medina, Bartolome de
Spanish Dominican theologian who developed the patio process for extracting silver from ore.
Medina, Constitution of
document from early Islamic history based upon two agreements concluded between the clans of Medina and the Prophet Muhammad soon after the Hijrah (Latin: Hegira), or emigration, to Medina in ...
Medina, River
river, Isle of Wight, England. The Medina drains much of the island, rising on the high sandstone ground near the south coast and flowing 12 miles (19 km) north through ...
Medina-Sidonia, Alonso Perez de Guzman, duke de
commander in chief of the Spanish Armada of 1588.
meditation
private devotion or mental exercise consisting in any of innumerable techniques of concentration, contemplation, and abstraction, regarded as conducive to heightened spiritual awareness or somatic calm.
Mediterranean fruit fly
particularly destructive and costly insect pest, a species of fruit fly (q.v.).
Mediterranean Sea
an intercontinental sea that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to Asia on the east and separates Europe from Africa. It has often been called the incubator of ...
Mediterranean vegetation
any scrubby, dense vegetation composed of broad-leaved evergreen shrubs, bushes, and small trees usually less than 2.5 m (about 8 feet) tall and growing in regions lying between 30° and ...
medium
in occultism, a person reputedly able to make contact with the world of spirits, especially while in a state of trance. A spiritualist medium is the central figure during a ...
medlar
(species Mespilus germanica), tree of the rose family (Rosaceae), closely allied to the genus Pyrus, in which it is sometimes included. A native of Europe from The Netherlands southward and ...
Medoc
wine-producing district, southwestern France, on the left bank of the Gironde River estuary, northwest of Bordeaux. An undulating plain extending for about 50 miles (80 km) to Grave Point, the ...
medulla oblongata
the lowest part of the brain and the lowest portion of the brainstem. The medulla oblongata is connected by the pons to the midbrain and is continuous posteriorly with the ...
medusa
in zoology, one of two principal body types occurring in members of the invertebrate animal phylum Cnidaria. It is the typical form of the jellyfish. The medusoid body is bell- ...
Medusa
in Greek mythology, the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons. She was usually represented as a winged female creature having a head of hair consisting of snakes. ...
Medved, Aleksandr Vasilyevich
Russian wrestler who is considered one of the greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time. He won gold medals in three consecutive Olympics (1964-72), a feat never matched by any other ...
Medvedev, Roy Aleksandrovich
Soviet historian and dissident who was one of his country's foremost historiographers in the later 20th century.
Medvedev, Zhores Aleksandrovich
Soviet biologist who became an important dissident historian in the second half of the 20th century.
Medwall, Henry
author remembered for his Fulgens and Lucrece, the first known secular play in English.
Medway
unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Kent, southeastern England. The unitary authority is named for, and lies around the mouth of, the River Medway where it flows into the ...
Meegeren, Han van
Dutch painter, best known for his successful and complex scheme of forging and selling paintings attributed to Dutch masters.
Meekatharra
town, west-central Western Australia. Founded in the 1890s, it became the centre of the Murchison goldfield, but with the exhaustion of gold it became the focal point of a large ...
Meer, Simon van der
Dutch physical engineer who in 1984, with Carlo Rubbia, received the Nobel Prize for Physics for his contribution to the discovery of the massive, short-lived subatomic particles designated W and ...
meerkat
burrowing member of the mongoose family (Herpestidae), found in southwestern Africa, that is unmistakably recognizable in its upright "sentinel" posture as it watches for predators. The meerkat is slender and ...
Meersch, Jean-Andre van der
military leader of the Belgian revolt against Austrian rule in 1789.
Meerut
town, northwestern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies northeast of Delhi, at the junction of several roads and rail lines. Meerut is a trade centre for agricultural products and ...
Megabyzus
one of the greatest generals of the ancient Achaemenid Empire of Persia.
Megacles
the leader of one of the parties that struggled for control of Athens during the period between the archonship of Solon and the establishment of Peisistratus' tyranny.
megacolon
massive enlargement and dilation of the large intestine (colon). The two main types of the syndrome are congenital megacolon, or Hirschsprung disease, and acquired megacolon. In congenital megacolon, the lowermost ...
megalith
huge, often undressed stone used in various types of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments.
Megalopolis
ancient and modern settlement, nomos (department) of Arkadhia, of the Peloponnese, Greece, just northwest of which lay an ancient city of the same name at 1,400 feet (427 m) above ...
Megalosaurus
carnivorous dinosaur and the subject of the first scientific description of a dinosaur ever published. Known from fossils of the Middle Jurassic Period (180 million to 160 million years ago) ...
Megan's law
in the United States, a law requiring that law-enforcement officials notify local schools, day-care centres, and residents of the presence of convicted sex offenders in their communities. The law is ...
megapode
(family Megapodiidae), any of 12 species of Australasian chickenlike birds (order Galliformes) that bury their eggs to hatch them. Most species rely on fermenting plant matter to produce heat for ...
Megara
ancient and modern settlement on the Saronic Gulf within Attica nomos (department) of Greece. Modern Megara sits on the southern slopes of two hills that served as the acropolises (citadels) ...
Megara Hyblaea
ancient city on the east coast of Sicily, 12 miles (19 km) north of Syracuse, founded about 728 BC by colonists from Megara in Attica. In 628 the city established ...
Megarian school
school of philosophy founded in Greece at the beginning of the 4th century BC by Eucleides of Megara. It is noted more for its criticism of Aristotle and its influence ...