The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-02-10
The Role o. Fever In
tiOn of Disc.

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AS long ago as the time of
Hippocrates, he expressed the belief
that fever was protective process.
Many others, more or less remote from
our times, have endorsed his views, so
that we find the PROFESSIONAL mind first
regarding the fever as salutary, then
as an annoying symptom to be regret
ted, and, very recently, rs symptom
to be controlled as a crying evil.
Notwithstanding the fact that the
usefulness of fever has been recognized
in the past, it is my intention to bring
forward additional evidence in support
of this view, and against the idea that
fever is harmful; or, in other words,
to show, by the introduction of the
newer evidence produced in recent
years by archaeological and other re-
search, that fever is not an unmitigated
evil, and that when We reduce fever
. by the use of drugs, we deprive the
body of therapeutic measuse devised
by nature for the protection of the
individual. 1t is but few months
since most of US were reducing all
fever by the use of antipyretic drugs.
There is an immense amount OF evil
dence to show that fever is harmful, if
the temperature really becomes high
(lOS0 to 100 F.) but there is almost
no evidence that it is harmful below
this point, it having been proved that
mucn, if not all, the morbid changes
in structure thought TO be due to the
fevrr are really produced by germs or
fn~inS IF riSa Of f9mnpr9-
ture has occurred.
Experiments by Welch and Others
have shown that animals can bear
very high, artitically induced tempera-
lures, provided no infectious processes
be present to weaken the organism.
Is fever protective agaist Infection?
This belief seems to besanctioned by
the following facts:
First-Fever is a condition develop
ing in healthy animals as soon as they
undertake to resist infection; nature
would hardly devise plan for vital
resistance handicapped by such an
important phenomenon, if ii were
useless in itself.
Second-Animals which have receiv-
sufficiently large doses of germs to
cause death, often develop very little
fever, or, in other words, are so
overwhelmed that the body can not
develop resisting measures.
Third-Animals receiving smaller
does speedily develop fever and recov-
er but if the same dose be given, and
fever prevented 10y artificial means,
they die as promptly as if large doses
were used.
Loewy and Richter, after producing
fever by puncture of the corpus
stratum, found that infection by the
Klebs-Loetfler bacillus, the pneulnoc.
occus, the coccus of erysipelas and the
micro-organiSm of chicken cholera,
failed to cause death as soon as usual,
even though hundred times the
ordinary fatal dose was injected; and
when three times the fatal dose OF
pneumoccocci was injected, the animals
with the highest temperature servived.
Wagner found that when chickens
were infected with anthrax bacilli
their temperature rose several degrees
and remained there for several days.
At the end of that time, no bacilli
could be found in their tissues.
If the their chickens were keep cool
artifcially, they promptly died.
Similar results ensued when the
temperature was reduced by antipyrm,
five out of six of the Infected chickens
dying.
Pasteur also records that fact that
chickens infected by anthrax survive,
but if cooled they promptly succumb.
Thus fever in some way aids the
body in acquiring immunity by the
formation of anti-toXin. The functional
activity of all the organs is increased
by the rise of temperature, and thus
the various methods adopted by nature
for the protection of the body against
infection are stimulated to the
uttermost.
Many years ago it was the effort to
reduce fevers by diaphoresis and
diuresis, and they often succeeded in
aborting feDrile movement by meas
ures too often to-day considered useless.
The trouble, if preventable, was set
aside; and if not, its true course and
the object of its existence were
not masked by powerful drugs.
Unfortunately for the profession, it
was discovered that digtails sometimes
reduced fever. Quinine soon took a
valued place as an antipyretic. Some.
thing stronger was required, and the
nearness of the period of ridiculous
fear of exposure to cold in fevers
excluded cold applications from the
therapy of such cases. Salicylic acid
was therefore introduced and from
this 1t was but step to the common
antipyretics of to-day.
There is, however, abundant evil
dence to prove that the older methods
of reducing fever by the production of
sweating and increased glandular
secretion had far more rational basis
than has the employment ofantipyretic
drugs: further, that antipyretic drugs
in reducing fever decrease the vital
resistance Of the patient, and that the
use of the cold bath or cold sponging
as employed to-day does good, not SO
much oy the reduction Of temperature
as by increasing glandular and other
vital activities.
The natural thought is that if
antipyreXia is harmful when obtained
by. drugs, it is also harmful when
obtained by cold baths, but clinical
results prove the contrary. | have
long felt that the cold bath did more
than to abstract heat, and venture
to advance the idea that it also
permits the tissues to destroy the
poison of the disease by oxidation or
allied processes.
The cold bath, therefore, has a
physiological action far more im-
pOrtant than the withdraw of heat !;
it really puts the system in the best
condition to resist disease.