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.[1][2] The term has been used for various local epidemics in previous centuries, and considered synonymous with other diagnoses, including "sweating sickness",[3] "prickly heat",[4] or "Picardy sweat" (after the region in Northern France).[5] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death report showed this non-specific, by today's standards, term.[1]

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

  1. ^ a b 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.
  2. ^ Murray, RD (March 1886). "Presidency General Hospital: Cases of Miliary Fever". Ind Med Gaz. 21 (3): 77–78. PMC 5001008. PMID 28999591.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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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