Definitions HQ

Fever (n.) comes ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠from februare: to drive the shades of the dead ritually out of a house.

Fever (n.) bred ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠fevers: one coherent idea of the febrile mechanism let Stoll count twelve kinds, and then add some 'new and unknown'.

Fever (n.) signalled, ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠to eighteenth-century medicine, not the disease but the resistance to it: life striving to break away from death, a purge driving out the morbid matter.

Fever (n.) has ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠qualities no instrument can catch: only a practised touch knows the acrid, irritating heat, like smoke in the eyes, that points to a putrid fever.

Fever (n.) cannot ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠be essential: it is only a quickened flow of blood with more heat and a lesion of the main functions, always hanging on some local irritation.