cauterize

軽視されがちな「鼻血」ですが, 出血の頻度や部位によって, 治療法も多岐にわたることが紹介されています。

Even mild nosebleeds nothing to sniff at

A 14-year-old boy in Saitama Prefecture had been suffering from nosebleeds since January. Blood suddenly dripped from his left nostril when he was sleeping or practicing with the school’s tennis club.

The nosebleeds sometimes occurred twice a day. Even though he cooled down his nose, pinched between his eyebrows or stuffed his nose with tissues, the nosebleeds continued for more than 15 minutes. His mother waited to see how things would go, but gradually began to fear her son was suffering from a serious disease.

中略

Although the Saitama boy treated his nosebleeds for about a week with the method he learned from the doctor, the bleeding continued. After another examination, the inside of his nose was anesthetized, and the damaged membrane was cauterized with a high frequency current. The treatment took only a few minutes.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003203779

今回取り上げる表現は “cauterize” /kˈɔːṭərὰɪz/ です。

『リーダーズ英和中辞典』(研究社)で調べると, 「腐食する, 焼灼する」とありました。今回は鼻腔の粘膜を治療するという内容から, 後者の意味で用いられています。 “cauterize” は上記のほか, 「<良心などを>麻痺させる」という場合にも使われるそうです。

Merriam-Webster.comには “medical : to burn (something, such as a wound) with heat or a chemical substance in order to destroy infected tissue” と定義されています。

さらに, 上記の英和辞典で調べると, 名詞 “cauterization” は医学用語で「焼灼[法]術」と「腐食」の両方を指すことがわかりました。(Cayu)