has been variously defined by physicians, almost every founder of a new system having given a definition of disease, differing in some respects from his predecessors. For a particular account of these definitions, see Medicine.

Of all animals, man is subject to the most diseases; and of men, the studious and speculative are most exposed thereto. Other animals have their diseases; but they are in smaller number: nor are plants without them; though their maladies scarce exceed half a score. The ancients deified their diseases. Some diseases only impair the use of the part immediately affected; as the ophthalmia, gout, &c. Others destroy it entirely; as the gouta ferena, palsy, &c. Some affect the whole body; as the fever, apoplexy, epilepsy, &c. Others only impair a part; as the asthma, colic, dropsy, &c. Some only affect the body; as the gout; others disturb the mind; as melancholy, delirium, &c. Lastly, others affect both the body and mind; as the mania, phrensy, &c.

The colder the country, in general, the fewer and the less violent are the diseases. Scheffer tells us that the Laplanders know no such thing as the plague, or fevers of the burning kind, nor are subject to half the distempers we are. They are robust and strong, and live to 80, 90, and many of them to more than 100 years; and at this great age they are not feeble and decrepid as with us; but a man of 90 is able to work or travel as well as a man of 60 with us. They are subject, however, to some diseases more than other nations; thus they have often distempers of the eyes, which is owing to their living in smoke, or being blinded by the snow. Pleurisies and inflammations of the lungs are also very frequent among them; and the small-pox often rages with great violence. They have one general remedy against these and all other internal diseases: this is the root of that sort of moss, as Scheffer expresses it, which they call jertb. They make a decoction of this root in the whey of rein-deer milk, and drink very large doses of it warm, to keep up a breathing sweat; if they cannot get this, they use the stalks of angelica boiled in the same manner: they have not so great an opinion of this as of the other remedy; but the keeping in a sweat, and drinking plentifully of diluting liquors, may go a great way in the cure of their diseases, whether either the one or the other of the drugs have any virtue or not. They cure pleurisies by this method in a very few days; and get well through the smallpox with it, that very few die of it.

It has been always observed, that people of particular places were peculiarly subject to particular diseases, which... which are owing to their manner of living, or to the air and effluvia of the earth and waters. Hofman has made some curious observations on diseases of this kind. He observes, that swellings of the throat have always been common to the inhabitants of mountainous countries; and the old Roman authors say, Who wonders at a swelled throat in the Alps? The people of Swifternland, Carinthia, Styria, the Hartz forest, Transylvania, and the inhabitants of Cronstadt, he observes, are all subject to this disease from the same cause.

The French are peculiarly troubled with fevers, with worms, and with hydroceles and sarcocoeles; and all these disorders seem to be owing originally to their eating very large quantities of chestnuts. The people of our own nation are peculiarly afflicted with hoarsenesses, catarrhs, coughs, dysenteries, consumptions, and the scurvy; and the women with the flor albus or whites; and children with a disease scarce known elsewhere, which we call the rickets. In different parts of Italy different diseases reign. At Naples the venereal disease is more common than in any other part of the world. At Venice, people are peculiarly subject to the bleeding piles. At Rome, tertian agues and lethargic distempers are most common. In Tuscany the epilepsy or falling sickness. And in Apulia they are most subject to burning fevers, pleurises, and to that sort of madness which is attributed to the bite of the tarantula, and which, it is said, is only to be cured by music. In Spain apoplexies are common, as also melancholy, hypochondriacal complaints, and bleeding piles. The Dutch are peculiarly subject to the scurvy, and to the stone in the kidneys. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Pomerania, and Livonia, are all terribly afflicted with the scurvy; and it is remarkable, that in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, fevers are very common; but in Iceland, Lapland, and Finland, there is scarce ever such a disease met with; though periapneumonies are very common in these places, as also diseases of the eyes and violent pains of the head. The Russians and Tartars are afflicted with ulcers, made by the cold, of the nature of what we call chilblains, but greatly worse; and in Poland and Lithuania there reigns a peculiar disease called the phoca polonica, to terribly painful and offensive, that scarce anything can be thought of worse. The people of Hungary are very subject to the gout and rheumatism: they are more infested also with lice and fleas than any other people in the world, and they have a peculiar disease which they call cremor. The Germans, in different parts of the empire, are subject to different reigning diseases. In Westphalia, they are peculiarly troubled with periapneumonies and the itch. In Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and other places thereabout, they are very liable to fevers of the burning kind, to bleedings at the nose, and other hemorrhages; and to the gout, inflammations, and consumptions. In Milinia they have purple fevers; and the children are peculiarly infested with worms. In Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, there are very few diseases; but what they have are principally burning fevers and frenzies. At Constantinople the plague always rages; and in the West Indian islands, malignant fevers, and the most terrible colics. These diseases are called endemic.

Diseases of Horses. See Farriery. Diseases of Dogs. See Dogs.

Diseases of Plants. See Agriculture Index.