The Fever That Drives the Infection Away

In 1868, German physician Carl Wunderlich published a landmark study establishing 98. 6 degrees Fahrenheit as the baseline for human body temperature. What he also documented was something doctors had observed for centuries: when harmful bacteria invade, the hypothalamus deliberately raises that temperature. The resulting fever feels miserable — aching muscles, chills, bone-deep fatigue. But the body knows exactly what it is doing.…