THE ADAPTIVE VALUE OF FEVER

There is overwhelming evidence in favor of fever being an adaptive hos t response to infection that has persisted throughout the animal kingd om for hundreds of millions of years. As such, it is probable that the use of antipyretic/anti-inflammatory/analgesic drugs, when they lead to suppression of fever, results in increased morbidity and mortality during most infections; this morbidity and mortality may not be appare nt to most health care workers because fever is only one of dozens of host defense responses. Furthermore, most infections are not life-thre atening and subtle changes in morbidity are not easily detected.