A dull pounding headache. Body aches that come and go. Chills that set your teeth to chattering and have you reaching for the fluffiest blankets to warm up. But the thing is, you’re already warm, hot even. At least according to the thermometer. That’s right, you’ve got a fever. Throughout the years of making this podcast, we’ve begun many a disease description with “it started with a fever” but we haven’t ever explored what that really means in depth until this episode. We take you through why fevers happen, how they work, why on earth you feel cold when you’re actually running a temperature, and whether they’re helpful, harmful, or somewhere in between. We then poke around in the history of thermometers, exploring when someone first thought to measure human body temperature and how that changed the concept of Fever the disease to fever the symptom. This is a red-hot fever dream of an episode with some very fun fever facts, so make sure to tune in!
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Ep 85 Alcohol: Beer for Thought
Ep 84 West Nile virus: The Crow in the Coal Mine
Ep 83 Diabetes: Short & Sweet
Ep 82 Anthrax: The Hardcore Spore
Ep 81 Chagas disease: The Reverse Triple Discovery
Ep 80 Dysentery loves a disaster
Ep 79 Hemophilia: A Hemorrhagic Disposition
Ep 78 Bartonella: Keep Calm and Carrión
Ep 77 Legionnaires' Disease: A Killer Mist
Ep 76 Chickenpox: There's always a 'but'
Ep 75 Mercury: The cost of progress
COVID-19 Chapter 20: Looking forward by looking back
Ep 74 Naegleria fowleri: The "brain-eating amoeba"
COVID-19 Chapter 19: Your Stories
Ep 73 Puerperal Fever: Seriously, wash your hands
COVID-19 Chapter 18: Conservation & Pandemics
Ep 72 White-Nose Syndrome: How deep is your torpor?
COVID-19 Chapter 17: Frontline Mental Health
Ep 71 Onchocerciasis/River Blindness: So many mysteries
COVID-19 Chapter 16: Disparities, Take 2
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