"The study of disease. Pathology has been defined as ""that branch of medicine which treats of the essential nature of disease."" The word ""pathology"" comes from the Greek words ""pathos"" meaning ""disease"" and ""logos"" meaning ""a treatise"" = a treatise of disease. The word ""pathology"" is sometimes misused to mean disease as, for example, ""he didn't find any pathology"" (meaning he found no evidence of disease). A medical doctor that specializes in pathology is called a pathologist. Pathologists are experts at interpreting microscopic views of body tissues."

"Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word pathology also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a more narrow fashion to refer to processes and tests which fall within the contemporary medical field of ""general pathology"", an area which includes a number of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly through analysis of tissue, cell, and body fluid samples. Idiomatically, ""a pathology"" may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of particular diseases (as in the statement ""the many different forms of cancer have diverse pathologies"", in which case a more proper choice of word would be ""pathophysiologies""), and the affix pathy is sometimes used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment (as in cardiomyopathy) and psychological conditions (such as psychopathy).[1] A physician practicing pathology is called a pathologist."