Almost everyone is familiar with the uncomfortable sensations brought about by a high temperature or fever. In small children, fever can give rise to fibrile convulsion but mostly results are less severe. A raised temperature is a symptom of many common illnesses. For any fever that persists medical attention should be sought.
Causes
The commonest cause of fever is probably an upper respiratory infection or influenza – like illness. The childhood infections such as mumps, measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, whooping cough and German measles all produce fevers. Tropical diseases have very marked fevers and are often named after the fever, for example typhus fever, sandfly fever, yellow fever, rat bite fever, and abortive fever. The enteric fevers are inflammations of the intestine associated with a raised temperature, for example typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, typhus fever and cholera.
Some fevers are not caused by infections. For instance, a head injury or a brain operation may affect the part of the brain (midbrain) that regulates the body temperature and so produce an abnormally temperature.
The cause of a child’s fever may be excitement or injury. In this case the temperature will revert to normal in two to three hours. However, if the fever continues, tonsillitis, pharyngitis or an ear infection are the most likely causes. In some childhood infectious diseases the rash may not be apparent for three days after the fever starts, as for example, in the case of measles.
In general the disease that causes a fever can definitely determined by a doctor after examination and a few selected tests. However, the disease may not be obvious and the patient will need to be admitted to hospital for tests to determine the cause.
Types
There are three main types of fever: continued, remittent, and intermittent.
A continued fever is one that is present all day and does not vary more than one degree. This kind of fever is commonly present in influenza, pneumonia, glandular fever, whooping cough, heat stroke, rheumatic fever and gout.
A remittent fever is one in which the temperature rises and falls more than two degrees. In most cases the temperature rises at night and falls in the morning. In pulmonary tuberculosis this is reversed, with a high fever in the morning and a lower temperature at night.
An intermittent fever is one which is only present for several hours in the day.
In the case of malaria, an intermittent fever occurs every day (quotidian), or on alternate days (tertian) or on every third day (quartan). There are several malarial parasites which cause the condition, each exhibiting characteristic fever patterns which provide a useful guide to treatment. The treatment varies according to the parasite involved.
Source:
Family Health and Medical library, Volume 4, pp 674 – 675,
Fever, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fever Symptoms, Treatment and Measuring Body Temperatures, MedicineNet.com
