A historical medical term referring to obstruction or blockage of internal passages, particularly in medical texts from ancient and Renaissance periods.
From Greek em- (in) + phrassein (to fence, block) + -is (noun ending), creating a technical medical term. It appears in Galenic and Hippocratic medical literature.
Medieval physicians used emphraxis to diagnose mysterious blockages, but when microscopes showed what actually caused disease, such vague terms became medical relics.
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