Fever (pyrexia), from fevero to heat, is an elevation of body temperature, accompanied by a quickened pulse, preceded and accompanied by varying degrees of failing nutrition and organic waste. A standard encyclopedia tells us that "the term 'fever' is applied to certain diseases in which high temperature is a prominent symptom; as typhus fever, scarlet fever, and yellow fever." This was and is yet, the medical idea of fever. The whole symptom-complex presented by the sick person is labeled "a fever," or a "febrile disease."

There was a time not so many years ago, when medical men divided "diseases" into two chief classes--namely, Fevers and Inflammations. John Thompson, M. D., an Allopathic authority of the last century, wrote: "It has long been acknowledged in the schools of medicine, that the formation of a rational education in physic must be laid in. a minute and accurate acquaintance with the appearance and treatment of the different kinds of fever, but, that the knowledge of the phenomena of inflammation is not less extensive in its applications to practice, nor less necessary to the acquirement of proper education in the art or science of surgery, seems to be only beginning to be perceived by medical men."

Prof. Gregory, M. D., declared, "The doctrines of fever are of paramount importance, and therefore constitute, with great propriety, the foundation of all pathological reasoning. In the preface to his Work on Fever, Prof. Clutterbuck says: "Fever is a disease of almost daily and universal occurrence." Dr. Southwood Smith, physician to the London Fever Hospital, referred to fever as "this fatal disease." Prof. Eberle declared: "The history of practical medicine consists of little else than a review of the doctrines which have risen and sunk again concerning the nature and treatment of fever."

Prof. Gregory declared: "Fever is the most important, because the most universal and the most fatal of all the morbid affections of which the human body is susceptible."**** "The physician must always be prepared to expect its occurrence. It is that by the presence or absence of which all his views of treatment are to be regulated: whose rise, progress and termination, he always watches with the closest attention. Some idea may be formed of the great mortality of fevers from the statement of Sydenham, who calculated that two-thirds of mankind die of acute disease, properly so-called; and two-thirds of the remainder of that lingering febrile disease--consumption."

Fever was the disease, "this fatal disease" and the cause of two-thirds of the deaths of mankind. It was the chief concern of the physician and the chief object of attack by his "remedies." It was the guide in treatment and "the most fatal of all morbid affections" Their doctrine of fever was one of the foundation stones, or fundamental principles of Allopathic medicine. Fever was an object of study for ages--its nature, its "seat," its origin, and the "proximate cause of its symptoms," were subjects about which many fantastic hypotheses were constructed.

In the following discussion of fever, we shall consider the increased temperature itself as fever and not the entire symptom complex; neither shall we give any attention to whether or not the fever is spotted, scarlet, yellow, malta, ship, jail, spring, autumnal, lung or brain. These unfounded nosological distinctions shall not be permitted to confuse the reader who is trying to understand the rationale of fever.

Before coming to an explanation of fever, I desire to give some "unorthodox" views of fever that were contemporaneous with the above quoted "orthodox" views.

Samuel Thomson, the New England farmer, who founded physio-medicalism, declared, in his "Guides to Health:" "I found by experience that the learned doctors were wrong in considering fever a disease, or an enemy. The fever is a friend and cold the enemy."

Dr. Trall defined fever as a "general effort of all the vital energies to relieve the system from the influence of some offending cause." He added that "this effort is made periodically, the system requiring intervals of rest, until victory or death results." It will be observed that the "fever" he here defines is the entire symptom-complex present in the patient, and not merely the rise in temperature. The same is true of the following statements which he made in his famous lecture on The True Healing Art, delivered in the Smithsonian Institute in 1862. He said: "Fever has no seat; fever is an action. Do not forget the primary question, what is disease? Fever is one form of disease; and as disease is a process of purification, fever must be one of the methods in which the system relieves itself of morbid matter.

"How much longer will medical men expend brain and labor, and waste, pen, ink, and paper, in looking for a thing which is no thing at all, and in trying to find a seat for a disease which has no localized existence."

J. S. Thomas, M. D., wrote, Physio-medicialism, p. 145: "We contend now from what we have said that disease is a condition that diminishes the energy of that power which sustains and preserves life, and that irritation, inflammation and fever are simply manifestations of the vital power to restore lost action." Again: "These vital actions (the actions of disease) are all friends to the patient, and should be aided, not subdued. The lost function of the surface before an ague (chill) cannot be restored without fever, and no laceration of the flesh can be healed without the aid of that physiological operation termed inflammation, which together with fever, they (the Allopaths and Homeopaths) treat as disease."

While the true function of fever was not understood by the physio-medicalists, they had some conception of its orthopathic character. As will be seen later a chill does not represent lost function of the surface, but suspended function and fever is not the means of restoring that function. On the contrary, suspended cutaneous function is an essential part of the production of the fever.

All living protoplasm manifests increased activity when its temperature is raised. Perhaps we can obtain a better picture of the action of protoplasm under varying degrees of temperature by observing the movements of an amoeba. Autonomous as this single celled creature may seem, it is unable, without outside influence, to raise its functions above the physiological standard, or, on the other hand, to check or suppress them.

If the liquid in which the amoeba exists, is gradually cooled the cell gradually ceases its movements and activities and becomes, finally, a mere inert globule which is capable of resuming its former activities only after its temperature is raised. Reduction of temperature reduces cellular activity.

An increase in temperature has the opposite effect. If the temperature, in which it exists, is raised a few degrees its movements, previously perhaps slow and languid, immediately become more lively--the vital activity of the cell is increased. An increase in temperature is necessary to an increase of vital activity.

If the temperature is raised too high the movements gradually cease. At a certain degree of warmth the cell becomes still and stiff and can resume its actions only after its temperature has been allowed to fall.