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What Do Those Words Actually Mean?

In the veterinary industry, us vet nurses hear all sorts of jargons - cryptic even - that we simply don't understand....

Until now.


Below are some much used words you will hear your vet mutter and now you can hold a fully fledged convo and speak their own language.

Cause let's face it, vets have a vocabulary all of their own.



1) Leucocytes Meaning: Leucocytes are white blood cells, these cells are used by the immune system to protect the body for infectious diseases and foreign invaders. Sentence: If the leucocytes are high, it means the animal’s body is fighting an infection or foreign invader.

2) Antimicrobials Meaning: Antimicrobials are types of medication that is used to kill or stop the growth of microorganisms. Sentence: Antimicrobials consist of antibiotics (like penicillin), antifungal (like fluconazole) and anti-parasitic (like Ivermectin).

3) Interstitial Fluid Meaning: Interstitial fluid is the body’s fluid between the blood vessels and cells, containing nutrients from capillaries by diffusion and holding waste products discharged by the cells due to metabolism. Sentence: There are three major fluid compartments; intravascular, interstitial, and intracellular. Fluid movement from the intravascular to interstitial and intracellular compartments occurs in the capillaries.

4) Neutrophils Meaning: Neutrophils are a type of leucocyte that act as the immune system’s first line of defence. Sentence: Neutrophils form in the bone marrow and travel throughout the body through the blood, tissue, and lymph nodes.

5) Macrophages Meaning: Macrophages are specialised cells involved in the detection, phagocytosis and destruction of bacteria and other harmful organisms. Sentence: Macrophages originated from blood monocytes that leave the circulation to differentiate in different tissues.

6) Phagocytose Meaning: Phagocytose or phagocytosis is the process where a cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf a large particle, giving rise to an internal compartment called the phagosome. A cell that preforms phagocytosis is called a phagocyte. Sentence: Phagocytose is one of the first processes responding to an infection.

7) Necrotic Meaning: Necrotic or necrosis is the death of body tissue, and occurs when too little blood flows to the tissue. Sentence: Necrotic tissue is pale, greyish, white, dull and depressed surrounded by a hyperaemic zone.

8) Debridement Meaning: Debridement is a procedure for treating a wound in the skin. It involves thoroughly cleaning the wound and removing all the hyperkeratotic, infected, and non- viable tissue. Sentence: Debridement may be done in layers or as one complete section of tissue.

9) Fibroblasts Meaning: A fibroblast is a type of cell that contributes to the formation of connective tissue, a fibrous cellular material that supports and connects other tissue or organs in the body. Sentence: Fibroblasts are the most common cell of the connective tissue in animals.

10) Epithelial Meaning: Epithelial or epithelium tissue, is one of the four basic types of animal tissue, along with connective tissue, muscle tissue and nervous tissue. It is a thin continuous protective layer of compactly packed cells with little intercellular matrix. Sentence: Epithelial tissue covers the outside of organs and structures in the body and line the lumens of organs in a single layer or multiple layer of cells.

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