Survey study, 1911
Can fever occurring before menstruation affect women's health conditions like tuberculosis?
Medical observations since 1861 describe fever appearing 1 or more days before menstruation and disappearing when bleeding begins. This may affect other health conditions, but detailed findings about how this works are not clearly presented.
What they did
This discusses historical medical observations about fever around menstruation. It cites observations made by Fiedler starting in 1861 and discusses what physiologists, gynecologists, and doctors have documented about how menstruation affects body temperature, blood circulation, metabolism, and inflammatory conditions.
What they found
Fever was observed to occur 1 or more days before menstruation and disappear quickly with the onset of menstrual bleeding. Medical professionals have noted inflammatory conditions in the pelvis that flare up around menstruation. Menstruation appears to affect symptoms and physical signs in women with pulmonary tuberculosis, including temperature changes.
What it means for you
Doctors have long observed that menstruation involves temperature changes and may affect other health conditions. However, without clear details of study methods and findings, it is hard to know how strong this connection is or its practical implications.
1861
year Fiedler first described menstrual fever
1 or more days
timing of fever before menstruation
About the study
- Original title
- THE RELATION OF PREMENSTRUAL FEVER TO PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS
- Authors
- Leo Kessel
- Journal
- JAMA
- Year
- 1911
- Study design
- Survey study
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1001/jama.1911.02560170003002
Original abstract
In 1861 Fiedler1drew attention to definite rises in temperature occurring with anomalies in menstruation, particularly dysmenorrhea. He noticed that fever occurred one or more days preceding the menstrual period and disappeared rapidly with the onset of the menses. He called this "menstrual fever" and thought that it was due to an anomaly in menstruation, but not to an inflammatory process. At times since, physiologists have studied the changes occurring in the circulation, temperature and metabolism associated with menstruation; gynecologists have seen an increase in inflammatory pelvic conditions, or a lighting up of those which had been seemingly latent at this time, and finally, internists have noted the influence of menstruation on pulmonary tuberculosis, particularly the aggravation of subjective symptoms and an increase in the physical signs and temperature changes (F. Neuman2). Macht3has recently published a review and a careful study of the history of the
Reproduced under public-domain.