fever

'Although doctors are aware of the beneficial effects of certain symptoms, such as coughing induced by pneumonia, many symptoms are regarded as harmful and are routinely treated - sometimes to the detriment of the patient. Fever is the best example. Long suspected as having adaptive value, fever has only recently been revealed as a beneficial response to infection. The response is triggered by bacterial toxins, and the resulting increase in body temperature is hostile to the invading microorganisms. Reduce the fever - using aspirin, for instance - and the disease may last longer, as Timothy Doran of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, has recently demonstrated in the case of chickenpox. '