organic disease

American  

noun

Pathology.

1. a disease in which there is a structural alteration (opposed to functional disease).

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organic disease British  

noun

1. any disease in which there is a physical change in the structure of an organ or part Compare functional disease

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Etymology

Origin of organic disease

First recorded in 1835–45

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

organic disease

Policy makers are so convinced that children with attention deficits have an organic disease that they have all but called off the search for a comprehensive understanding of the condition.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2012

Yes — and the idea that you feel like you’re a different person is a symptom of the particular organic disease, which I discovered.

From Time ● Oct. 18, 2011

Yet her psychiatrist did not know she had an organic disease.

From Time ● Oct. 18, 2011

Erratic, obese, disheveled, suffering from a mortal organic disease, she said that she was driving her mule down a lane the night that Dr. Hall was killed.

From Time Magazine Archive

By organic disease is meant one that causes serious, perhaps permanent deterioration of the tissues of the body; by functional disease is meant one due to a perverted action of approximately normal organs.

From McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 4, August 1908 by Various