A medical condition where the body fails to produce proper digestive juices, especially stomach acid and enzymes needed for digestion.
From Greek 'a-' (without) and 'chyle' (digestive fluid), literally 'without chyle.' Medical terminology borrowed this construction to describe the absence of normal digestive secretions.
Achylia was a death sentence before modern medicine—without stomach acid, people couldn't digest food or survive infections, so ancient doctors had no real treatment and patients just wasted away.
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