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Definition 2024
malacia
malacia
See also: -malacia
English
Noun
malacia (plural malacias)
- (medicine) An abnormal craving for certain types of food. [from 17th c.]
- 1916, A. J. Carlson, The Control of hunger in health and disease, page 267:
- The least abnormal condition appears to be the malacia, or desire for highly spiced or acid foods that are sometimes seen in chlorotic girls and in pregnant women.
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- (pathology) Abnormal softening of organs or tissues of the human body. [from 19th c.]
- 1860, Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow, Cellular Pathology as Based Upon Physiological and Pathological Histology, page 318:
- As soon, namely, as a process of this sort sets in in a compound organ, as for example, a muscle, a palpable myo-malacia is certainly produced when all the muscular elements at a given point are at once affected; but it happens far more frequently that, in the course of a muscle, only a comparatively small number of primitive fasciculi are affected, whilst the others remain almost intact.
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