Health and Disease | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Introduction

• Health could be defined theoretically in terms of certain measured values; for example, a person having normal body Temperature, pulse and breathing rates, blood pressure, height, weight, acuity of vision, sensitivity of hearing, and other normal measurable characteristics might be termed healthy. Biological criteria of normality are based on statistical concepts.
  Health might be defined better as the ability to function effectively in complete harmony with one's environment. Implied in such a definition is the capability of meeting—physically, emotionally, and mentally—the ordinary stresses of life. In this definition health is interpreted in terms of the individual's environment. Health involves more, than physical, fitness, since it also implies mental and emotional wellbeing.
• The definitions of illness and disease are equally difficult problems. Despite the fact that these terms are often used interchangeably, illness is not to be equated with disease. A person may have a disease for many years without even being aware of its presence. Although diseased, this person is not ill. Similarly a person, with diabetes who has received adequate insulin treatment is not ill. An individual who has cancer is often totally unaware of having the disorder and is not ill until after many years of growth of the tumour, during which time it has caused no symptoms. The term illness implies discomfort or inability to, function optimally. Hence it is a subjective state of lack of well-being produced by disease. Regrettably, many disease escape detection and  possible cure because they remain, symptomless for long years before they produce discomfort or impair function.
• Disease, which can be defined at the simplest level as any deviation from normal form, and function, may either-be associated with illness or be latent. In the latter circumstance, the disease will either become apparent at some later time or will render the lndividual more susceptible to illness. The person who fractures an ankle has an injury—a disease—producing immediate illness. Both form and function have been impaired. The illness Occurred at the instant of the development of the injury or disease. The child who is infected with measles on the other hand, does not become ill until approximately 10 days after exposure (the incubation period). During this incubation period the child is not ill but has a viral infectious disease that is incubating and will soon produce discomfort and illness.
  Disease, defined as any deyiation from normal , form and function, may be trivial if the deviation is minimal. A minor skin infection might be considered trivial,for example. On the eyelid, however, such an infection could produce considerable discomfort or illness. Any departure from the state of health, then, is a disease, whether health is measured in the theoretical terms of normal measured values or in the more pragmatic terms of ability to function effectively in harmony with one's environment.
• Disease may be acute chronic malignant. Of these terms chronic and acute have to do with the duration of a disease, malignant and benign with its potentiality or causing death.
  An acute disease process usually begins abruptly and is over soon. Acute appenditions for example, is characterized by the sudden onset of nausea, vomiting, and pain usually localized in the lower right side of the abdomen. It usually requires immediate surgical treatment. The term chronic refers to a process that often begins very gradually and then persists over a long period. For example, ulcerative colitis—an inflammatory condition of unknown cause that is limited to the colon—is a chronic disease. Its peak incidence is early in the second decade of life. The disease is characterized by relapsing attacks, of bloody diarrhea that persist., for weeks to months. These attacks alternate with asymptomatic periods that can last from weeks to years.
• The terms benign and malignant, most often used to describe tumours, can be used in a more general sense. Benign diseases are generally without complications, and a good prognosis (outcome) is usual. A wart, on the by a virus; it produce no illness  and usually disappears, spontaneously. if given enough time (often many years). Malignancy implies a process that, if left alone, wild result in fatal illness. Cancer is the-general term for all malignant tumours.
• Diseases usually are indicated by signs and symptoms. A sign is defined as an objective  manifestation of disease that can be determined by a physician; a symptom is subjective evidence of disease reported by the patient. Each disease entity has a constellation of signs and symptoms more or less uniquely its own; individual signs such as fever, however, may be found in a great number of diseases.

Classifications of diseases

• Classifications of diseases become extremely important in the compilation of statistics on causes of illness (morbidity) and causes of death (mortality). It is obviously important to know what kinds of illness and disease are prevalent in an area and how these prevalence rates vary with time. Classifying diseases made it apparent, for example, that the frequency of lung cancer was entering a period of alarming increase in the mid-20th century. Once a rare form of cancer it had become the single most important form of cancer in males. With this knowledge a search was instituted for possible causes of this increased prevalence, it was concluded that the occurrence of lung cancer was closely associated with cigarette smoking. Classification of disease had-helped to ferret out an important, frequently causal, relationship.
• The most widely used classifications of disease are (1) topographic, by bodily region or system, (2) anatomic, by organ or tissue, (3) physiological, by function or effect, (4) pathological, by the nature of the disease process, (5) etiologic (causal), (6) juristic, by speed of advent of death, (7) epidemiological, and (8) Statistical. Any single disease may fall within several of these classifications.
• In the topographic classification, diseases are subdivided into such categories as gastrointestinal disease, vascular disease, abdominal disease, and chest disease. Various, specializations within medicine follow such topographic or systemic divisions, so that there are physicians who are essentially vascular surgeons, for example, or clinicians- who are specialized in gastrointestinal disease. Similarly, some physicians have become specialized in chest disease and concentrate principally on diseases of the heart and lungs.
• In the anatomic classification, disease is categorized, by the specific organ or tissue affected; hence, heart disease, liver disease, and lung disease. Medical specialties such as cardiology, are restricted to diseases of a single organ, in this case the heart. Such a classification has its greatest use in identifying the various kinds of disease that affect a particular organ.
• The physiological classification of disease is based on the underlying functional derangement produced by a specific disorder. Included in this classification are such designations as respiratory and metabolic disease. Respiratory diseases are those that interfere with the intake and expulsion of air and the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in the lungs. Metabolic diseases are those in which disturbances of the body's chemical processes are a basic feature. Diabetes and gout are examples.
• The pathological classification of disease considers the nature of the disease process. Neoplastic and inflammatory disease are examples. Neoplastic disease include the whole range of tumours, particularly cancers, and their effect on human beings.
• The etiologic classification of disease is based on the cause, when know. This classification is particularly important and useful in the consideration of biotic disease. On this basis disease might be classified as staphylococcal or fungal, to cite only a few instances. It is important to know, for example, what kinds of disease staphylococci produce in human beings. It is well known that they cause-skin infections and pneumonia, but it is also important to note how often they cause meningitis, abscesses in the liver and kidney infection. The sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis and gonorrhea are further examples of diseases classified by etiology.
• The epidemiological classification of disease deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disorders in a population. Epidemiology is one of the important sciences in the study of nutritional and .biotic diseases around the world, The United Nations supports, in part, the World Health Organization, whose chief function is the worldwide investigation of the distribution of disease. In the course of this . investigation, many observations have been made that help to explain the cause and provide approaches to the control of many diseases.