Delirium

delirium

a state of excitement and mental confusion, often accompanied by hallucinations, caused by high fever, poisoning, brain injury, etc.

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Delirium

 

the totality of ideas and concepts not corresponding to reality, distorting reality, and not lending themselves to correction. Delirium completely takes possession of the consciousness and is characterized by the destruction of logical thinking. It is a symptom of many mental illnesses (for example, schizophrenia and alcoholism).

There are two varieties of delirium. In so-called primary delirium, rational, logical cognition is affected; distorted judgment is consistently reinforced by a series of subjective proofs having their own system. This type of delirium is persistent and has a tendency to be progressive. “Emotional” delirium is characterized by images, primarily day-dreams and fantasies; ideas are fragmentary and inconsistent; and rational and emotional cognition are disturbed. Delirium can be eliminated when the underlying illness is cured.

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Delirium

 

clouding of consciousness that generally occurs at the height of an infectious disease and is accompanied by a flood of vivid visual hallucinations, raving, and motor excitation. Delirium provoked by alcohol is called delirium tremens.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

delirium

[di′lir·ē·əm]

(medicine)

Severely disordered mental state associated with fever, intoxication, head trauma, and other encephalopathies.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Delirium

An embedding coordinate language for parallel programming, implemented on Sequent Symmetry, Cray, BBN Butterfly.

["Parallel Programming with Coordination Structures", S. Lucco et al, 18th POPL, pp.197-208 (1991)].

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)