[Not measurable but immeasurably important : Fever-The leading symptom of ancient medical theory].

Fever was the main symptom of nontraumatic diseases in antiquity. Increased body temperature was detected by the physician through palpation of the skin and the pulse. Hippocrates of Cos described fever in several books and numerous case studies. The great physician paid more attention to the duration and temporal distribution of the fever than to its intensity. Among the accompanying symptoms, somnolence, coma and delirium were particularly feared. More than half a millennium later, Galen of Pergamum extensively documented the fever theory of antiquity once again. The choice of conservative treatment was influenced by the patient's general condition and the frequency of fever recurrence. If it failed, phlebotomy was available as a last resort. Retrospective diagnostics have identified malaria as the principal cause of fever epidemics in antiquity. The ancient physicians often described the threat to humans from wind and water but did not recognize or at least consider the causal connection between the swarms of mosquitoes rising from the swamps and the widespread fever.