Sustained Artificial Fever in the Treatment of Intractable Asthma

It has been observed repeatedly in the past that acute infections with fever exert a beneficial influence on chronic diseases, such as malignant conditions, dementia paralytica and others. We were especially interested in the observation that in chronic asthma and other allergic diseases the advent of an intercurrent infection, such as scarlet fever, pneumonia or an abscess, usually resulted in a temporary improvement or remission. This has been observed by others 1 and is rather common knowledge among those who treat patients with allergic diseases. It occurred to one of us (S. M. F.) that the production of fever by artificial means might be of benefit in the treatment of chronic asthma and other allergic conditions. We were aware, of course, that there were a number of methods in use for the production of nonspecific therapy usually accompanied by febrile reactions. The intravenous injections of typhoid vaccine, intramuscular injections of