Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Phan Boi Chau ... phenolsulfonphthalein test

Phan Boi Chau: dominant personality of early Vietnamese resistance movements, whose impassioned writings and tireless schemes for independence earned him the reverence of his people as one of Vietnam's greatest patriots.
Phan Chau Trinh: nationalist leader and reformer who played a vital role in the movement for Vietnamese independence and who was the leading proponent of a reformist program that joined the aims of expelling the French and of restructuring Vietnamese society.
Phan Dinh Phung: Vietnamese government official who opposed French expansion in Vietnam and became a leader of the nationalist resistance movement.
Phan Khoi: intellectual leader who inspired a North Vietnamese variety of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which scholars were permitted to criticize the Communist regime, but for which he himself was ultimately persecuted by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Phan Thanh Gian: Vietnamese government official and diplomat whose conservatism and strict adherence to the political and ethical tenets of Confucianism may have contributed to the French conquest of Vietnam.
Phan Thiet: seaport, southern Vietnam. It lies along the South China Sea at the head of a broad crescent bay, 112 miles (180 km) east-northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Originally a fishing village, it had resort facilities under the ...
Phanariote: member of one of the principal Greek families of the Phanar, the Greek quarter of Constantinople (Istanbul), who, as administrators in the civil bureaucracy, exercised great influence in the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. Some members of these families, ...
Phanerozoic Eon: the span of geologic time extending about 540 million years from the end of the Proterozoic Eon to the present. The Phanerozoic, the eon of visible life, is divided into three major spans of time largely on the basis of ...
Phangnga: town, southern Thailand, on the hilly western side of the Malay Peninsula. It lies on the coastal road and is a centre for mining, trade, and tourism inspired by the mountain caves and coastal scenery. The surrounding area has a ...
Phanias: also spelled Phaenias, or Phainias Greek philosopher of Eresus on the island of Lesbos, a pupil of Aristotle and a friend of Theophrastus, whom he joined in the Peripatetic school.
phantom midge: any insect of the family Chaoboridae (order Diptera), similar in appearance to the mosquito. The common name is derived from the fact that the larvae are almost transparent. Their antennae are modified into grasping organs. The larvae, found in pools, ...
Phao Sriyanond: director general of the Thai government's national police, who as one of a powerful triumvirate, with Luang Phibunsongkhram and Sarit Thanarat, built a formidable armed force in an unsuccessful attempt to assert his individual authority.
pharaoh: (from Egyptian per 'aa, "great house"), originally, the royal palace in ancient Egypt; the word came to be used as a synonym for the Egyptian king under the New Kingdom (starting in the 18th dynasty, 1539-1292 BC), and by the ...
Pharisee: member of a Jewish religious party that flourished in Palestine during the latter part of the Second Temple period (515 BC-AD 70). Their insistence on the binding force of oral tradition ("the unwritten Torah") still remains a basic tenet of ...
pharmaceutical: substance used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of disease and for restoring, correcting, or modifying organic functions.
pharmaceutical industry: complex of processes, operations, and organizations engaged in development and manufacture of drugs and medications.
pharmacology: branch of medicine that deals with the interaction of drugs with the systems and processes of living animals, in particular, the mechanisms of drug action as well as the therapeutic and other uses of the drug.
pharmacopoeia: book published by a government, or otherwise under official sanction, to provide standards of strength and purity for therapeutic drugs. The primary function of a pharmacopoeia is to describe the formulation of each drug on the selected list. The provisions ...
pharmacy: the science and art concerned with the preparation and standardization of drugs. Its scope includes the cultivation of plants that are used as drugs, the synthesis of chemical compounds of medicinal value, and the analysis of medicinal agents. Pharmacists are ...
Pharnabazus: Persian soldier and statesman who was the hereditary satrap (provincial governor) of Dascylium under Darius II and Artaxerxes II. Pharnabazus was an outstanding military and naval commander in Persia's wars against Athens and Sparta. In the war with Athens, beginning ...
Pharos of Alexandria: one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the most famous lighthouse in antiquity. It was a technological triumph and is the archetype of all lighthouses since. Built by Sostratus of Cnidus, perhaps for Ptolemy I Soter, it was ...
Pharr: city, Hidalgo county, southern Texas, U.S., in the lower Rio Grande valley. It is one of several small cities in the area (including McAllen, San Juan, and Edinburg) with mixed farm, oil, and gas economies. Settled in the 1900s and ...
Pharsalus, Battle of: (48 BC), the decisive engagement in the ancient Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. After Caesar had been defeated by Pompey at Dyrrhachium in 48 BC, both armies departed and again made contact somewhere near what is today ...
pharyngitis: inflammatory illness of the mucous membranes and underlying structures of the throat (pharynx). Inflammation usually involves the nasopharynx, uvula, soft palate, and tonsils. The illness can be caused by bacteria, viruses, mycoplasmas, fungi, and parasites and by recognized diseases of ...
pharynx: (Greek: "throat"), a cone-shaped passageway leading from the oral and nasal cavities in the head to the esophagus and larynx. The pharynx chamber serves both respiratory and digestive functions. Thick fibres of muscle and connective tissue attach the pharynx to ...
phase: in thermodynamics, chemically and physically uniform or homogeneous quantity of matter that can be separated mechanically from a nonhomogeneous mixture and that may consist of a single substance or of a mixture of substances. The three fundamental phases of matter ...
phase: in astronomy, any of the varying appearances of a celestial body as different amounts of its disk are seen (from the Earth, ordinarily) to be illuminated by the Sun. The Moon displays four main phases: new, first quarter, full, and ...
phase: in thermodynamics, chemically and physically uniform or homogeneous quantity of matter that can be separated mechanically from a nonhomogeneous mixture and that may consist of a single substance or of a mixture of substances. The three fundamental phases of matter ...
phase: in mechanics of vibrations, the fraction of a period (i.e., the time required to complete a full cycle) that a point completes after last passing through the reference, or zero, position. For example, the reference position for the hands of ...
phase diagram: graph showing the limiting conditions for solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of a single substance or of a mixture of substances while undergoing changes in pressure and temperature or in some other combination of variables, such as solubility and temperature. ...
phase rule: law relating variables of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, deduced by the American physicist J. Willard Gibbs in his papers on thermodynamics (1875-78). Systems in thermodynamic equilibrium are generally considered to be isolated from their environment in some kind of ...
Phasianidae: the pheasant family, a bird family (order Galliformes) that includes among its members the jungle fowl, partridge, peacock, pheasant, and quail (qq.v.).
Phatthalung: town, southern Thailand, situated in a large fertile plain 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Songkhla. It lies on the Bangkok-Singapore rail line. The area is planted largely in rice and coconuts. Fishing is a major activity on Thale Lagoon. ...
Phaulkon, Constantine: Greek adventurer who became one of the most audacious and prominent figures in the history of 17th-century European relations with Southeast Asia.
Phayao: town, northern Thailand, lying in a mountainous region on the watershed between the Mekong and Chao Phraya river systems. Phayao is located on a scenic mountain lake that empties into the Ing River, a Mekong tributary. The town was the ...
Phayre, Sir Arthur Purves: British commissioner in Burma (Myanmar), who made a novel attempt to spread European education through traditional Burmese institutions.
pheasant: any bird of the family Phasianidae (order Galliformes) that is larger than a quail or partridge. Most pheasants-some 50 species in about 16 genera of the subfamily Phasianinae-are long-tailed birds of open woodlands and fields, where they feed in small ...
pheasant's-eye: (species Adonis annua), annual herbaceous plant of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) native to Eurasia and grown in garden borders and for cut flowers. It is 20 to 40 cm (8 to 16 inches) tall and is noted for its small, ...
Pheidon: king of Argos, Argolis, who made his city an important power in the Peloponnese, Greece.
Phek: town, southern Nagaland state, northeastern India, 75 miles (121 km) east of Kohima town. It is a rural town whose inhabitants practice shifting cultivation. Weaving is the important cottage industry. The people of the region belong to different ethnic groups ...
Phelps, Almira Hart Lincoln: 19th-century American educator and writer who strove to raise the academic standards of education for girls.
Phelps, Michael: American swimmer, who won a record eight swimming medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
Phelps, Samuel: British actor and manager, one of the most famous actors of the 19th century.
Phelps, William Lyon: American scholar and critic who did much to popularize the teaching of contemporary literature.
Phenacodus: extinct genus of primitive mammals known from fossils of the Early Eocene Epoch (57.8 to 52 million years ago). Though too late in time to have been the ancestral form from which the hoofed mammals evolved, Phenacodus represents a late-surviving ...
phenakite: rare mineral, beryllium silicate, Be₂SiO₄, used as a gemstone. Phenakite has long been known from the emerald and chrysoberyl mine on the Takovaya River, near Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), in the Urals region of Russia, where large crystals occur in mica ...
Phenix City: city, Lee and Russell counties, seat (1935) of Russell county, eastern Alabama, U.S., about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Opelika. The city is a port on the Chattahoochee River, opposite Columbus, Georgia. Incorporated in 1883 as Brownville, it was ...
phenobarbital: barbiturate drug that became available in 1912, used in medicine as a sedative-hypnotic. See barbiturate.
phenol: any of a family of organic compounds characterized by a hydroxyl (&singlehorzbond;OH) group attached to a carbon atom that is part of an aromatic ring. Besides serving as the generic name for the entire family, the term phenol is also ...
phenolphthalein: an organic compound of the phthalein family that is widely employed as an acid-base indicator and as a laxative.
phenolsulfonphthalein test: clinical procedure for the estimation of overall blood flow through the kidney; the test is used only infrequently now. A specific dose of the PSP dye is injected intravenously, and its recovery in the urine is measured at successive 15-, ...