cholo-, chol-, chole-

Formation of bile pigments by the liver.

One of the four basic fluids humors of the body according to ancient and medieval medicine, thought to make someone whose body contained too much of it prone to anger, bad temper, and irritability; yellow bile.

1. An acute infectious disease of the small intestine and characterized by profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting, muscle cramps, severe dehydration, and depletion of electrolytes.
2. A contagious disease caused by Vibrio cholerae, which produces a toxin that alters the water and electrolyte fluxes toward secretion in the upper intestinal tract, thereby causing a profuse, watery diarrhea resulting in severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
3. Any of various diseases of domesticated animals; such as, chickens, turkeys, or hogs, marked by severe gastroenteritis.

The disease is endemic in southeast Asia and India and epidemic globally. It is commonly transmitted in contaminated drinking water.

4. Etymology: from "choler, bile, melancholy"; from Latin cholera, from Greek kholera, "a type of disease characterized by diarrhea, supposedly caused by choler"; from khole, "gall, bile"; from khloazein, "to be green"; from khloros, "greenish-yellow".

Marked by a low threshold for the expression of anger or rage; irascible.

Resembling cholera; choleroid.

1. The presence of bile and blood in the thorax (area of the body located between the neck and the abdomen that contains the lungs, the heart and part of the aorta).
2. A pleural effusion (excess fluid between the two membranes that envelop the lung) containing bile and blood.

The most common symptoms of pleural effusion are chest pain and difficulty breathing (dyspnea). Many pleural effusions cause no symptoms but are discovered during a physical examination or seen on a chest x-ray, which is the most convenient way to confirm the diagnosis.

Many conditions are capable of causing pleural effusion, including heart failure and uremia (kidney failure), hypoalbuminemia (low levels of albumin in the blood), infections (TB, bacterial, fungal, viral), pulmonary embolism, and malignancies (metastatic tumors, Hodgkin disease, mesothelioma).

Formation of bile.

1. An examination of the biliary tract system or the organs, ducts, and other structures that participate in secretion (the liver), storage (the gallbladder), and delivery (hepatic and bile ducts) of bile into the duodenum (the first section of small intestine beyond the stomach).
2. The visual examination of bile ducts utilizing a fiberoptic endoscope (an optical system in which the image is conveyed by a compact bundle of small diameter, flexible, glass or plastic fibers).