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262 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF DISEASE.
Disease, in the sense in which I shall use it, as in
cluding also disorder, is, in every respect, the opposite,
or the lack of health. It is, to borrow again a definition
from our great lexicographer, "
Any
deviation from
health, in function or structure, the cause of pain or
uneasiness, distemper, malady, sickness, disorder, any
state of a living body in which the natural functions of
the organs are interrupted or disturbed, either by de
fective or preternatural action, without a disrupture of
parts by violence, which is called a wound. The first
effect of a disease is uneasiness or pain, and the ulti
mate effect is death. A disease may affect the whole
body, or a particular limb or part of the body. We
say a diseased limb, a disease of the head or stomach,
and such partial affection of the body is called a local or
topical disease."
Webster's definition is true as to the uses of the
word, but I shall not quite agree with the pathology of
some of the last sentences of the definition. The sys
tem is so bound up in common relations of sympathy,
that no disease can be local. The prick of the finest
needle affects the whole system; and a very slight
wound may bring on death by lockjaw.