Hectic Fever

Hectic Fever (Gr. hektikos, 'habitual;' see FEVER) is the name given to the fever which occurs in connection with certain wasting diseases of long duration. It is one of the most serious and constant symptoms of Consumption (q.v.), and seems to be directly related to the progressive emaciation which marks the course of that malady. In the morning the patient's temperature may be normal. He may even feel chilly. But towards evening or after eating he grows hot and flushed; and there is a preternatural vividness of expression, which, with the heightened colour, sometimes gives a very fallacious impression of health. The patient retires to bed, has tossing and uneasy sleep, and wakens in the middle of the night, or towards early morning, bathed in cold perspiration, and in a state of extreme languor. The same exhausting cycle repeats itself day after day. The only radical way of treating the fever is to cure the disease on which it depends. When the symptom itself must be combated, a pill containing a grain of sulphate of quinine, with half a grain of digitalis and as much of Dover's powder, taken three times a day, is often serviceable.