MEDULLA OBLONGATA • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Medulla oblongata

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noun

Medulla n.

Marrow; pith; hence, essence. (Obs.)

(Anat.) The marrow of bones; the deep or inner portion of an organ or part; as, the medulla, or medullary substance, of the kidney; specifically, the medula oblongata.

(Bot.) A soft tissue, occupying the center of the stem or branch of a plant; pith.

See medulla oblongata.

Medulla oblongata. (Anat.), the posterior part of the brain connected with the spinal cord. It includes all the hindbrain except the cerebellum and pons, and from it a large part of the cranial nerves arise. It controls very largely respiration, circulation, swallowing, and other functions, and is the most vital part of the brain; called also bulb of the spinal cord. See Brain.

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Etymology of 'Medulla oblongata'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Medulla oblongata" Quotes from Famous Books

... organs; and that the regular movements of the respiratory, alimentary, and other internal organs are governed and guided, as mechanically, by their appropriate nervous centres. The even rhythm of the breathing of every one of us depends upon the structural integrity of a particular region of the medulla oblongata, as much as the ticking of a clock depends upon the integrity of the escapement. You may take away the hands of a clock and break up its striking machinery, but it will still tick; and a man may be unable to feel, speak, or move, and ...

— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... the dorsal side: brain and spinal cord exposed. (From Kolliker.) h cerebral hemispheres (fore brain), m corpora quadrigemina (middle brain), c cerebellum (hind brain): under the latter is the triangular medulla oblongata (after brain). ...

— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... different bundles of nerve-roots, and to his demonstration of the curved ascending and descending fibres from the posterior nerveroots, to reach what he has called the longitudinal columns of the cornea. I must also mention Dr. Dean's exquisite microscopic photographs from sections of the medulla oblongata, which appear to me to promise a new development, if not a new epoch, in ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... as it fell, scrambled to my feet, and drove the knife at his throat in a round-house swing that happened to come handiest at the time. The point went through his flesh like nothing and jarred against his spine with a violence that I hoped would shock into nervous insensibility the stoutest medulla oblongata and prevent any dying ...

— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber