Degeneration

1. The act or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse; decline; degradation; debasement; degeneracy; deterioration.
2. (Physiol.) That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure; as, fatty degeneration of the liver.
3. (Biol.) A gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.
4. The thing degenerated.
Amyloid degeneration, Caseous degeneration, etc.
See under Amyloid, Caseous, etc.