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OF DISEASE. 263<br />

Disease is "any deviation from health." If the<br />

body, as a whole, or in any of its parts, is wanting in<br />

proper development, that is disease. If there be lack<br />

ing any faculty of the mind, any sentiment or passion<br />

that belongs to man, or any degree of energy and activ<br />

ity suitable to such faculty, it is disease. If there is<br />

any want of harmony in body or mind, it is disease. If<br />

there is any lack of any function, any irregularity, or<br />

excess, or any kind of discordance, it is disease.<br />

And as the great sign and result of health is pleasure<br />

or happiness, so the great symptom and effect of disease<br />

is or pain misery.<br />

And as we have pleasure in all degrees, from the<br />

simplest feeling of satisfaction to the keenest ecstasy, so<br />

we have all degrees of pain, from uneasiness to agony,<br />

and every degree of misery is produced by a corre<br />

sponding degree of disease.<br />

Diseases are divided by pathologists into general and<br />

local ; but, as I have said, there is no local disease which<br />

does not affect the whole system. So it is believed by<br />

many, that there is no so-called general disease which<br />

has not some special locality, throwing the force of its<br />

morbid action some upon particular organ, either on<br />

account of its weakness, its excited condition, or some<br />

peculiar aptitude to receive it. Thus we have fevers,<br />

which are considered general diseases of the nervous<br />

system or the circulation, becoming brain fevers, lung<br />

fevers, bilious fevers, etc., according to the organ most<br />

affected.<br />

Diseases are also divided into functional and organic.<br />

They are called organic, when some injury to, or alter<br />

•<br />

ation of the organ is perceptible<br />

and functional, when

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