=Health= may be said to be the harmonious exercise and mutual balance of all the bodily functions, and any interference with such mutual exercise or balance may be said to constitute disease. But as health passes into disease by insensible gradations, there is of necessity an extensive borderland which often cannot be allotted to one condition or the other, but which must often be left a disputed territory. Again certain animal constitutions are innately strong and robust, while others are weak and feeble, yet the delicacy of the latter cannot be set down as actual disease, and by maintaining a due balance between the functions, a fair measure of health and even long life may be secured. =Death= as the result of disease may be either _partial_ or _somatic_. =Partial= or =local death= may be _molecular_ as in =ulceration=, or it may affect an organ or part of an organ, as in =necrosis=, =sphacelus=, or =sloughing=. =Somatic death= is a loss of vitality of the entire body and is manifested by a complete cessation of the bodily functions, including that of nutrition. Usually the arrest begins with one of the great vital processes, in advance of the others, and thus in different cases, we have _death beginning at the heart, at the lungs, and at the brain_. =Death from syncope or fainting, begins at the heart=, which loses its irritability or contractility, or is seized with a tonic spasm. If there has been lack of contractility, the heart is found after death in a flabby, soft condition, and quite frequently filled with blood. If heart-spasm, it is contracted, firm, and empty or nearly so. Syncope may result from severe nervous shock (emotional), from the electric current, from insolation, or from heart sedatives like chloroform, or nicotine. It may, however be but the culmination of a gradually advancing debility, from exhausting diseases, from fatty degeneration of the cardiac muscles, or from starvation, or anæmia. Again the exhaustion coming from profuse hæmorrhage, or from violent over-exertion is a cause of fatal syncope.