Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
DISEAS'ES. The multiplied forms in which sickness and suffering appear among men are so many signs of the evil of sin. Reference is made to the interposition of God in sending and removing diseases. Ps 39:9-11; Ps 90:3-12. The plagues, pestilences, and other instrumentalities by which, in former ages, a multitude of lives were destroyed at once were often miraculous — that is, the natural causes and progress of disease were not employed, or were not visible. Ex 12:23, 1 Chr 2:29; 2 Kgs 19:35; 1 Chr 21:12-15; Acts 12:23.
The simple diets and habits of the Jews would keep them from many diseases, but the Bible proves that they enjoyed no miraculous protection. The diseases of the East of to-day were known to them; such are ophthalmia, leprosy, brain-fever, pestilential fevers, lung-disorders. There was also a special form of disease, known as "having an evil spirit," very common in our Lord's day. See Devil, Medicine.