The empiric therapeutic use of artificially induced fever had its origin in antiquity. Only in the last two decades has there been notable progress in the rational or scientific use of fever in combating disease.
The present activity in the field of fever therapy began in 1918, when Wagner-Jauregg published his excellent work on the treatment of dementia paralytica with induced malaria. Nonspecific protein therapy had been introduced only a short time prior to this. In the past six years the production of hyperpyrexia by physical means has been widely studied.
Innumerable diseases of widely divergent character have been treated with fever therapy with equally varying results. Some interest has already been exhibited in this form of therapy by ophthalmologists, particularly in the treatment of syphilitic ocular diseases and gonorrheal ophthalmia and, to a lesser extent, in the treatment of corneal ulcers and iritis of nonspecific origin. After consideration of