Probing Evolution

Fever Can Hurt or Help, Depending on What Started It

#3. Stopping fever during infection might increase disease transmission in the population.

Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)
Microbial Instincts
6 min readJun 20, 2020

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“Humanity has but three great enemies: fever, famine, and war; of these by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever,” William Osler, known as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the “greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope,” said at the 1896 American Medical Association meeting in Atlanta.

Fever? Perhaps the better word would be infectious diseases. As per the 1990 work of the English Hippocrates, Thomas Sydenham: Fever is the “nature’s engine which she brings into the field to remove her enemy.” And the enemy is infections. Still, what is the fascination with fever?

1. Sources of Fever

The cut-off body temperature for fever is ≥38.3°C (101.0°F). It can go up to 41°C. Microbes cause the majority of fever cases. They trigger the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines that act on the brain’s…

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Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)
Microbial Instincts

Independent science writer and researcher | Named Standford's world top 1% scientists | Medium's boost nominator | Elite Powerlifter | Ghostwriter | Malaysian