Brain Fever

While reading Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I came across an unfamiliar disease called Brain Fever. Brain fever is a medical condition where a part of the brain becomes inflamed and swollen. The symptoms are often very similar to that of a fever, thus giving it the name Brain Fever. If left untreated, it usually takes two weeks to claim its victim’s life. Brain fever can turn into much worse though, such as Encephalitis or Meningitis. Both of which have proven to be very deadly in their own right. Brain fever was a common ailment in the 17^th century more specifically. Brain Fever is often attributed to unsanitary living conditions. It is also used as a device in the book, Sherlock Holmes.

While Sherlock Holmes is not the only literary or historical reference using brain fever though it is the most recent account of Brain Fever that I recall having read. Theodore Lyman who was a staff sergeant in the civil war, had a daughter who passed away from brain fever in 1869. There is also a bird that is called the brain fever bird, due to its unorthodox call sounding like someone suffering from this painful disease.

In Sherlock Holmes, a selfish husband takes advantage of his wife, by pretending she had died of Brain Fever. Instead, he committed her to a mental asylum. All so he could inherit the small treasure that she had. But this lie didn’t fool Sherlock. He and Watson ended up discovering that the husband had faked his wife’s death when the maid came forward and told them the truth. He probably would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids. Just kidding. 

In fact, in the early 1900’s, husbands could simply commit their wives into an insane asylum for little reason at all. Hundreds upon thousands of women were committed into asylums unnecessarily. As they may have just been sick and the husbands did not want to care for them. They were often left to die. Thankfully, times have changed and women are not treated in this manner.

Even though brain fever isn’t as wide spread as it once was, it is still lurking in our midst ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Brain Fever typically isn’t as deadly though, because breakthroughs in medicine have allowed doctors and scientists to find ways of combating this deadly disease. Sadly, most third world countries do not have complete access to sanitary living conditions and medicines, proving brain fever to be a much more common foe, than it would be in America.

It is definitely more prevalent though in the crowded streets of India, where people end up living. For me it is unimaginable to think of the conditions that some people are forced to live in throughout the world. In closing, if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have written Sherlock Holmes in today’s society he might have been more apt to choose a disease such as E-coli rather than one like Brain Fever.