(τάβος, suffering or disease, and λόγος, a discourse) is properly, and in its widest sense, the science of disease. It is usually divided by scientific men into general and special pathology. The former includes, first, the more general principles relative to the primary elements of disease, including the various phenomena and causes of those derangements to which the animal economy is subject; and, second, the general facts or principles relative to the more obvious analogies of disease, derived from a comparative view of particular diseases. The latter or special division of pathology comprehends the consideration of particular diseases as they occur in nature. The French divide pathology into external and internal, employing those terms in a sense synonymous with what English writers usually call the principles and practice of surgery and physic. From whatever point of view, however, we regard the derangements of the animal frame, the objects of investigation are precisely the same. There are, first, the morbid phenomena symptomatic of derangement; second, the morbid agents by which derangements of the economy are liable to be produced; third, the more immediate seats, and the peculiar nature of each, of those derangements to which the system is liable; and, fourth, the morbid changes discoverable after death, whether as cause or as effect of certain derangements of functions known to exist during life. In short, pathology has for its bases the observation of the circumstances that precede a disease, of its symptoms when present, and especially the examination of the body after death. (See Medicine, and Physiology.)