Landry's paralysis
- noun
- /ˈlændriz pəˈræləˌsɪs/
- Archaic
:
parálisis de Landry
- Doctors observed progressive limb weakness in patients diagnosed with Landry's paralysis.
Examples
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She suffers from Landry's paralysis and needs assistance.
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Landry's paralysis is now considered an early classification of what is known as Guillain-Barré syndrome.
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The history of Landry's paralysis traces back to the 19th century and its discovery in France.
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Doctors diagnosed him with Landry's paralysis last week.
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Doctors observed progressive limb weakness in patients diagnosed with Landry's paralysis.
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She suffers from Landry's paralysis and needs assistance.
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Landry's paralysis is now considered an early classification of what is known as Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Synonyms
Swelling of many nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that causes pain, weakness and sometimes paralysis
A rare illness in which the body's immune system attacks nerves, causing pain, weakness and sometimes loss of movement
Surface Forms
Morphology
Landry's + paralysis
This is an eponymous medical term: the noun 'paralysis' clearly signals loss of movement, so a learner who knows that word will recognise the core meaning. However, 'Landry's' is a proper name with no semantic content that would allow a learner to infer the specific symptoms, cause, or rarity of the syndrome. Therefore the expression yields a clear general category (a type of paralysis) but not its detailed medical sense.
Etymology
Landry's paralysis comes from a French doctor called Landry who, in the 1800s, saw patients whose legs and then arms slowly lost the power to move. The word paralysis means 'loss of movement', so the name points to a condition of growing weakness that can lead to 'paralysis'.
