radiation sickness

radiation sickness n sickness that results from exposure to radiation and is commonly marked by fatigue, nausea, vomiting, loss of teeth and hair, and in more severe cases by damage to blood-forming tissue with decrease in red and white blood cells and with bleeding

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an acute illness caused by extreme exposure to rays emitted by radioactive substances, e.g. X-rays or gamma rays. Very high doses cause death within hours from destructive lesions of the central nervous system. Lower doses, which may still prove fatal, cause immediate symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea followed after a week or more by bleeding and other symptoms of damage to the bone marrow, loss of hair, and bloody diarrhoea. Some of these milder symptoms can occur after radiotherapy during treatment of cancer.

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a condition resulting from exposure to a whole-body dose of over 1 gray of ionizing radiation, characterized by the symptoms of the acute radiation syndrome (see under syndrome). Its severity varies with the dose level.