Why do we get fever? The first thing your doctor, or even your mother, will do when you don't feel well is take your temperature with a thermometer. They are trying to find out whether you have a temperature. Your body has an average temperature of 37 degrees centigrade when it is healthy. Disease makes this temperature rise, and we call this higher temperature "fever." While every disease doesn't cause fever, so many of them do that fever is almost always a sign that your body is sick in some way. Your doctor or nurse usually takes your temperature at least twice a day and puts it on a chart, showing how your fever goes up and down. This chart can often tell the doctor exactly which disease you have. A fever chart for pneumonia, for instance, goes up and down in a certain way. Other diseases have other patterns or "temperature curves" on the chart. The strange thing is that we still don't know what fever really is. But we do know that fever actually helps us fight off sickness. Here's why: Fever makes the vital processes and organs in the body work faster. The body produces more hormones, enzymes, and blood cells. The hormones and enzymes, which are useful chemicals in our body, work harder. Our blood cells destroy harmful germs better. Our blood circulates faster, we breathe faster, and we thus get rid of wastes and poisons in our system better. But the body can't afford to have a fever too long or too often. When you have a fever for 24 hours, you destroy protein that is stored in your body. And since protein is mighty necessary for life, fever is an "expensive" way to fight off disease! For Details
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