Word: glands
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Andersen describes his work. "I say 'Woh!' when the part I want for first cut is opposite my blade. It is just behind the middle of head. I turn down saw, zuff-zuff, then I stop saw. nip in quick and grab the gland-messy purple and hard like rock-on edge of brain. I grab, twist and pull like hell...
...gland that calls forth Magnus Andersen's specialized skill is the pituitary, whose function was unknown in Melville's day. Today medicine knows the pituitary as a master gland in the body's complex and delicately balanced hormonal system; it secretes, among others, the master hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), which regulates activity of the adrenal glands astride the kidneys...
...Bigger Than Pigs. To find the whale's gland in a 20-ft. head, Andersen must show uncanny judgment, for a misplaced stroke of the saw could slash through the pituitary itself. In 1956 Andersen retrieved 871 pituitaries from 898 blue and fin whales, got a bonus of half a bottle of rum for every 50 glands. (On other ships, an estimated 30,000 more whale pituitaries were gathered.) An average season's catch of pituitaries will bring the owners of one ship little more than $2,000, but says a spokesman, "our policy is waste not, want...
...move to a warm climate (on the theory that in cold temperatures tissues require a greater blood supply, which puts a strain on the heart). With better drug control, such moves are rarely advised now. Patients used to be subjected to surgery to remove part of the thyroid gland. This can now be done by simply swigging an "atomic cocktail" of radioactive iodine. Tobacco is no longer banned in all cases-"there is little point in forbidding a tense patient to smoke a little, if that serves to relax him." Also, "if one or two drinks a day serve...
...radio-cobalt devices for treating cancer. The consensus: in many types of cancer they are no better than old-fashioned X rays; in some cases they offer only slight improvement. But they can markedly increase the cure rate in cancers of the mouth, nasal sinuses, brain, esophagus, parotid gland...