Miliary fever was a loose medical term used in the past to indicate a general cause of infectious disease that cause an acute fever and skin rashes similar to the cereal grain called proso millet. The term has been used for various local epidemics in previous centuries, and considered synonymous with other diagnoses, including "sweating sickness", "prickly heat", or "Picardy sweat" (after the region in Northern France). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death report showed this non-specific, by today's standards, term.
After subsequent advances in medicine, this term fell into disuse, supplanted by other more specific names of diseases, for example the modern miliary tuberculosis.
References
- ^ Wheater, M (September 1990). "Mozart's last illness--a medical diagnosis". J R Soc Med. 83 (9): 586–9. doi:10.1177/014107689008300917. PMC 1292822. PMID 2213810.
- Murray, RD (March 1886). "Presidency General Hospital: Cases of Miliary Fever". Indian Med Gaz. 21 (3): 77–78. PMC 5001008. PMID 28999591.
- "Miliary Fever, or the Sweating Sickness". The Lancet. 168 (4342): 1374–1375. 17 November 1906. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)68887-6. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
- Renbourn, ET (May 1958). "The history of sweat and prickly heat, 19th-20th century". J Invest Dermatol. 30 (5): 249–59. doi:10.1038/jid.1958.50. PMID 13549798. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
- Cliff, AD; Smallman-Raynor, MR; et al. (2009). "'Disease Emergence and Re-emergence Prior to 1850'". Infectious Diseases: A Geographical Analysis: Emergence and Re-emergence. Oxford: Oxford Academic. p. 87. ISBN 9780199244737. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
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