Disease

A disease was a detrimental medical condition that was not an injury.

Infection
A disease could be transmitted in various ways, through an injury through which germs could get into the system, ingestion, inhalation, or mere contact to or of germs.

Once infected, the disease took hold in a body that was not of strong enough constitution. After an incubation period, the disease showed its symptoms, which persisted until the host was cured of the disease or died of it.

Disease situation on Toril
On Toril, wide-spread plagues were mostly a problem of the past by the 14 century DR.

Reason for thid was that diseases turned into wide-spread plagues when a population never encounteref them before. Toril had a long history interracial intermingling up to crossbreeding. People were exposed to various germs since childhood and therefore developed immunities and, being the descendants of survivors from plagues, they also inherited immunities from their ancestors. Overall, wide-spread plagues were not a problem in urban areas but more in isolated rural areas.

Treatment situation on Toril

 * Official Level: Another reason why plagues were contained was that preventive treatment was done on official level by the priesthood and/or the rulers. This was done either through official enforcement or by secretly mixing medical substances into food and water. People who were strangers and obviously afflicted were generally killed, at least in frontier regions.
 * Personal Level: On personal level, people had no real medical knowledge and therefore relied first and foremost on experience, re-using methods that helped themselves or close associates in the past, and secondary on the counsel of elders the likes.

Information situation on Toril
As a general rule, the people of Faerûn had at least some knowledge how which disease was transmitted and had a shared understanding on the matter. What they were in disagreement with were the treatment methods. This had at least two reasons. First, there was the aforementioned reliance on personal experience, second, there was false information that was intentionally as such. For example, followers of Talona did such things.

Disease-List
The most common diseases were: