Pathology

(pă-thol'o-je.) [From Gr. pathologeo, I treat of disease.] That branch of medicine which is concerned with diseases, their causes and symptoms. Its objects are to ascertain the various symptoms which characterize the disorders of each organ of the body, and especially the diagnostic and pathognomonic symptoms, which afford the means of discriminating between diseases that resemble each other; to determine the causes, both predisposing and exciting, by which diseases are induced; and to ascertain the mode of cure, and the nature and operation of the remedies adapted to the various circumstances and periods of diseases. Physiology teaches the nature of the functions of the body in a state of health; pathology, the various derangements of those functions which constitute disease. [s. 689]