Sickness (roga) is the malfunctioning of the organism due to infection or injury. If every sickness were caused by past kamma, as some misinformed Buddhists maintain, then taking medicine would be pointless. But the Buddha listed eight causes of sickness, only one of which is kamma, the others being imbalance of bile, phlegm or wind, the bodily humors, the weather, improper care and accidents (S.IV,230).