Merriam Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary, an update of the 1986 edition published as Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary, is written for laypeople. Its format and size remain unchanged. According to the publisher, there are more than 5,000 new words, and 6,000 definitions have been revised. Definitions for such terms as AIDS have been extensively revised to reflect the Center for Disease Control's new criteria. As in the previous one, some 1,000 biographies of individuals whose names are an integral part of the medical literature are included.
The publisher claims that this volume "combines a medical wordlist (including British terms and spelling variants) selected and defined on the basis of citational evidence." Since there are several million medically relevant citations, a critical review of those included in this dictionary was made. Also, every word used in the defining vocabulary had to be in
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. The result is a usable and understandable dictionary that includes pronunciation, capitalization, division, usage, and variants. There are no illustrations. The definitions are concise and technical but still understandable by the educated layperson.
ISBN-10: 0877794731
ISBN-13: 978-0877794738
System Requirements
WINDOWS 98/Me/2000/NT 4.0/XP:
===================================
* Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/NT 4.0/XP
* Pentium or higher processor
* CD-ROM drive
* SVGA monitor with a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels
and using 16-bit color (called High Color in Windows
2000 and Medium Color in XP)
* Keyboard and Windows-compatible pointing device (e.g.,
mouse)
* 32 MB RAM
* 70-100 MB hard drive space (depending upon the reference
purchased
* Sound card and speakers (for audio versions)
* To use Go Online options, Netscape version 4.75 or higher
or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher
MACINTOSH:
===================================
* Macintosh computer with a G3 or G4 processor or higher
* OS 9.x or 10.x
* SVGA monitor that can display a screen resolution of
at least 800 x 600 pixels and using thousands of colors
* Keyboard and a Macintosh compatible pointing device
(e.g., mouse)
* 32 MB RAM
* 70-100 MB hard drive space (depending upon the reference
purchased
* Sound card and speakers (for audio versions)
* To use Go Online options, Netscape version 4.75 or higher
or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher
