One aspect of fever I harp on year after year and where I am continually ignored is the importance of not treating a fever. It is estimated that the fever response is 400 million years old. How do they know that? Got me. Most molecular techniques are “sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable” from magic; all I know is that they were not measuring core body in T. rex. Every creature that can make a fever will make a fever when infected. All branches of the immune system function better at 102 than 98.2 (yes, 98.2), but in the calorie poor environment most creatures live in, if we maintained our core temp at 102 we would all starve to death. It is also quite remarkable how many potential pathogens cannot grow at 98.2, much less 102. Being above ambient temperature protects against thousands of molds and bacteria.
That’s SBM. The post is actually concerned with breathing, another automatic impulse, and one that has attracted crackpots looking to fail the tests of crackpot science.
Not Unreasonable 