- Health: It is good state of person’s physical, social and mental well being.
- Health of a person depends on physical environment, social environment, economic conditions, self happiness.
- Disease:
- Disturbance of ease or condition of being uncomfortable.
- Healthy person can be disease free but it is not necessary that disease free person can be healthy.
- A disease free person can have proper body functioning, but may suffer from social or mental problem.
- Comparison between healthy and disease free:
Healthy Disease free It is a condition of physical, mental and social well being It is condition of absence of disease as well as mental and social well being Depends on person, society and surrounding Depends only on person In this state, person remains disease free with good health In this state, person remains disease free but can have good or bad health Behaviour of healthy person is active and stable Behaviour of disease free person is may or may not be active and stable - Symptoms: Changes or variations shown by organs or body when affected with a disease. E.g: Body pain and increase in temperature are symptoms of fever.
- Acute disease: Disease which last for short period of time. E.g: common cold, fever, eye infections, pain, etc.
- Chronic disease: Disease which last for long time or throughout life. Example: Respiratory diseases, kidney diseases, heart diseases, etc. Such diseases can cause loss of weight or prolonged weakness.
- Causes of disease:
- Drinking unclean water
- Lack of nourishment
- Genetic differences carried from parents to children
- Poor family conditions, etc.
- Infectious diseases: Diseases which are caused by microbes [microbes like bacteria, viruses, fungi, germs] are called as infectious diseases. They are spread by physical contact. E.g. Tuberculosis
- Noninfectious disease: Diseases which are not caused by microbes are called as non infectious disease. They do not spread by physical contact E.g. cancer, high or low blood pressure, etc.
Infectious agent Disease Virus Dengue fever, Common cold, etc Bacteria Cholera, Typhoid, Tuberculosis, etc Fungi Skin diseases like ringworm Protozoa Malaria, kala azar, etc Worms Ascariasis, elephantiasis, etc - Infectious diseases can be cured by Antiviral, Antibacterial and Antifungal disease.
- Antiviral (Anti- against, Viral- Virus ): Medicines that stops growth of virus. E.g. Amantadine.
- Antibiotic (Anti- against, Biotic- Bacteria): Medicines that stops growth of bacteria by damaging their cell wall. E.g. Streptomycin, Amoxicillin, etc.
- Antifungal (Anti- against, Fungal- Fungus): Medicines that stops growth of fungus and kill them. E.g. Amphotericin.
- Air borne diseases: Diseases which spread through air are air borne diseases. E.g. Tuberculosis
- Water borne diseases: Disease which spread through water are water borne disease. E.g. Cholera
- Sexual disease: Disease that spread through sexual contact are called sexual disease. E.g. AIDS
- Animal borne disease: Diseases which are spread by animals are called animal borne disease. E.g. Malaria, Rabies.
- Organ specific manifestation [Manifestation – Symptoms]: Microbes infect specific organ of body. E.g. If microbes enter through nose, it may infect lungs and cause breathing problem
- Tissue specific manifestation: Microbes infect tissues of body. E.g. HIV virus, infects the tissues thereby, damaging immune system.
- Principles of treatment:
- Reducing symptoms of disease: Use of medicines, taking bedrest can reduce the symptoms of disease but it does not ensure that disease is cured.
- Killing of Microbes: For complete removal of disease, it is necessary to kill the microbes. This is done by using medicines like antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, etc
- Prevention of diseases:
- General methods:
- Less crowded surrounding prevents airborne diseases
- Use of clean drinking water prevent water borne diseases
- If environment is clean animal borne disease will not spread
- Specific methods of prevention: Method of vaccination is used. Agents which look similar to infectious agents but are not harmful to body are injected into the body. Immune system fights with it and remembers it. Later when real infectious agent enter into body, immune system fights with more power and disease is cured at faster rate.
- General methods:




