Description and Possible Medical Problems All of us get headaches from time to time. Sometimes they’re mild, while at other times it’s impossible to do much more except lie down in a dark room until it passes. A simple headache with no other symptoms—like vomiting or vision changes—is usually not serious. Most headaches are triggered [...]

Fortunately, regardless of the cause of your relative’s confusion, in most cases she will return to normal with proper treatment. Immediate medical attention is the key; when medical care is delayed, a person will sometimes recover fully, but her short-term memory may be permanently affected; it seems that the area of the brain that controls [...]

Medicare had the unseen benefit of allowing medical technology to advance even more in this country than it would have without the program, since it meant more money for research. Another government program, Medicaid, is a state-run program that receives federal money to meet the health care expenses of poor people, including the elderly, blind, [...]

Doctors do not fully understand the complicated relationship between high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries. The two diseases can exist separately, but they often go together. The greatest damage occurs in the latter case. We have indicated how hypertension injures the heart by making it work against pressure, and how arteriosclerosis causes a [...]

Although we still do not know the exact cause of rheumatic fever, medical science has accumulated a great many facts about the disease. It is a delayed result of a streptococcal infection, such as sore throat, scarlet fever, tonsillitis, or middle ear infection, which may still be present when rheumatic fever strikes, but which more [...]

This is a thin, flexible sheath worn by the man over his penis in order to prevent the sperm cells from entering the woman’s vagina. It is important to buy condoms at a good pharmacy and to select a recognized brand. The condom should be tested before it is worn. The condom is inflated like [...]

Vaccination has all but eliminated smallpox. The doctor makes a tiny scratch on the person he is vaccinating, and applies some weak germs of a harmless disease called cowpox; the blood promptly creates antibodies that protect it against cowpox and smallpox for a number of years. Introducing material that has been rendered harmless to the [...]

The stomach, which is located in the abdominal cavity, resembles a bag approximately a foot long and six inches wide. The narrow small intestine is about 22 feet long, and the colon, or large intestine, is about four and one half feet long. A tube called the oesophagus connects the throat to the stomach. The [...]