Dialysis

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /daɪˈælɪsɪs/

Definitions

1. A therapeutic technique used to remove waste and excess fluids from the bloodstream in individuals with impaired kidney function
2. A medical intervention that involves the purification of the blood to eliminate toxic substances when kidneys are unable to perform this task
3. A process that clears toxins, waste, and surplus fluids from the blood when the kidneys fail to do so

Etymology: The word that now names kidney treatment began as a term for the breaking apart of a sentence's logic and of a disease's course, not of blood. In ancient Greek, "diálusis" meant a loosening or dissolving, built from "dia-" (through, apart) and "lysis" (a loosening, from "lyein," to loose or untie). Greek writers used it in a range of senses, from the dissolution of a body or a bond to the resolution of a problem, and it passed into Latin as "dialysis" with those same loosening meanings. English took the word around 1550, when it still carried this general sense of separation or resolution. Its medical meaning did not arrive until the nineteenth century, when the Scottish chemist Thomas Graham used "dialysis" for the separation of substances in solution by their ability to pass through a membrane. Graham's work on diffusion gave the term its scientific footing, and the blood-cleaning sense came later still, as physicians adapted that membrane principle into artificial kidney machines in the twentieth century.

Synonyms: filtration, purification, cleansing