Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Carter, Gary Edmund, 1954–2012, American baseball player, b. Culver City, Calif. A superb catcher and clutch-hitting right-handed slugger, he played in the majors for 19 years. Drafted (1972) by the...

(Encyclopedia) dermatitis dûrˌmətīˈtĭs [key], nonspecific irritation of the skin. The causative agent may be a bacterium, fungus, or parasite; it can also be a foreign substance, known as an allergen. Contact ...

(Encyclopedia) dragon's blood, name for a red resin obtained from a number of different plants. It was held by early Greeks, Romans, and Arabs to have medicinal properties; Dioscorides and other early writers descri...

(Encyclopedia) bloodletting, also called bleeding, practice of drawing blood from the body in the treatment of disease. General bloodletting consists of the abstraction of blood by incision into an artery (arterioto...

(Encyclopedia) Ahaz āˈhăz [key], d. c.727 b.c., king of Judah (c.731–727 b.c.), son of Jotham. His reign marked the end of the real independence of Judah. A coalition of Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria attac...

(Encyclopedia) Chelsea ware, chinaware made in the mid-18th cent. at a factory in Chelsea, London. The earliest specimens extant are dated 1745 and have the potter's mark of a triangle and the word Chelsea. Nicholas...

(Encyclopedia) hue and cry, formerly, in English law, pursuit of a criminal immediately after he had committed a felony. Whoever witnessed or discovered the crime was required to raise the hue and cry against the pe...

(Encyclopedia) Apalachee ăpˌəlăchˈē [key], tribe of Native North Americans once centered about Apalachee Bay, NW Florida, belonging to the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native Amer...

(Encyclopedia) International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), formerly World Conservation Union, international organization founded in 1948 to encourage the preservation of wildlife...

(Encyclopedia) Coptos kŏpˈtəs [key], ancient city of Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, c.27 mi (43 km) N of modern Luxor. Remains of the Temple of Min, patron god of Coptos, have been found there as well as r...