Absorb

Absorb: 1. To take something in, as through the skin or the intestine.2. To react with radiation and reduce it in intensity, as with a dose of radiation or transmitted light

Absinthism

Absinthism: The disorder associated with the habitual abuse of absinthe. The symptoms included hallucinations, sleeplessness, tremors, and convulsions. There has been debate over whether absinthism was due to absinthe or the alcohol contained therein. For more information,

Absinthe

Absinthe: Once a major medical hazard, absinthe is an emerald-green liqueur flavored with extracts of the wormwood plant, licorice and aromatic flavorings in a alcohol base. Absinthe was manufactured, commercialized and popularized in France in the late 1700s by Henri-Louis Pernod. It became an extremely popular and addictive drink. Among the famous figures who made absinthe a symbol of decadence were the writer Oscar Wilde, the poet Charles Baudelaire, and the artists Edouard Manet, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso.
The first important medical research on absinthe was initiated in 1864 by a psychiatrist, Valentin Jacques Joseph Magnan, who exposed a veritable Noah's arkful of animals to wormwood oil (the essence of absinthe) and alcohol (the base of absinthe). He put cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs under an individual glass case next to a saucer of either wormwood oil or alcohol. The animals that breathed the alcohol fumes became drunk while those that inhaled the vapors of wormwood had epileptic seizures, reported Dr. Magnan in the medical journal The Lancet.
Prolonged drinking of absinthe causes convulsions, blindness, hallucinations, and mental deterioration. Absinthe has been banned but something of its taste of absinthe is still available in such drinks as ouzo in Greece and in France, pastis, long considered "the mother's milk of Provence."

Absenteeism

Definition of Absenteeism
Absenteeism: The frequent absence from work or other duty without good reason

Absent eye

Absent eye: Also called anophthalmia, a congenital malformation (birth defect) of the globe.
Anophthalmia refers, strictly speaking, to absence of the globe and ocular tissue from the orbit. However, in most cases of anophthalmia, CT scans show some remnants of the globe, indicating they represent severe microphthalmia (small eyes).
Anophthalmia/microphthalmia may involve one or both eyes. It may occur in isolation with no associated malformations or it may be part of a multiple congenital malformation syndrome as, for example, the congenital rubella syndrome, the triploidy syndrome (due to the presence of 69 chromosomes), the trisomy 13 syndrome (Patau syndrome, due to an extra chromosome 13), and the Wolf-Hirschorn syndrome (which is due to deletion of part of the short arm of chromosome 4).
Anophthalmia comes from the Greek an-, absence + ophthalmos, eye + absence of the eye.

Abscission

Abscission: To remove tissue by cutting it away, as in surgery

Abscess

Abscess: A local accumulation of pus anywhere in the body. The following are some examples of abscesses:
A skin abscess is better known as a common boil;
A peritonsillar abscess is a persistent collection of pus behind the tonsils; and
A perianal abscess is a pool of pus that forms next to the anus, often causing considerable tenderness and swelling in that area and pain on sitting down and on defecating.