In a message dated 11/16/2002 9:02:11 AM Mountain Standard Time, NJ-MEMORIES-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > We sweated it out > and were usually well, but weak come morning. > "Sweating it out" was based on the fact that when people break a fever, the experience is generally accompanied by sweating. Usually it's viral illnesses (like colds) that come to a halt like that: the body gets the upper hand on the virus, the infection that's driving the fever up disappears, and the body turns on the sweating mechanism in order to get the temperature back to normal quickly. Folks in the "olden days" observed that people who broke out into a sweat in the middle of the night from colds or flu or stuff like that were often much better in the morning. They incorrectly concluded that there was a cause-and-effect relationship there and that making a person perspire heavily (by bundling them up and applying irritants like mustard to the skin) would stop the disease process overnight. The reason it seemed to work so often is that colds are a short-term illness to start with, and often the application of all that stuff would coincide with the natural conclusion of the disease. "Sweating it out" isn't practiced now because it hasn't any real curative power and can cause dehydration. Even antipyretics like Tylenol or Motrin aren't recommended unless a fever is high enough to cause seizures in small children or is causing extreme discomfort; breaking the fever can interfere with the immune system's work. In fact, they've shown that patients with viral illnesses who take Tylenol or another fever medication actually have symptoms longer than those who take nothing at all. Doris in Colorado (Up2Nutrix@aol.com) "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -- Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr