TY - JOUR T1 - Physical treatment of fever JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood JO - Arch Dis Child SP - 238 LP - 239 DO - 10.1136/adc.82.3.238 VL - 82 IS - 3 AU - Edward Purssell Y1 - 2000/03/01 UR - http://adc.bmj.com/content/82/3/238.abstract N2 - Fever is a common symptom of childhood illness, and much time and effort is spent in the pursuit of reducing high temperature. Although antipyretic drugs are the main form of treatment, this report considers the part that physical treatments might play in reducing the temperature of febrile children. Such treatments include tepid sponging, removing clothing, and cooling the environment. Of these treatments, tepid sponging has been studied most extensively, as an addition to paracetamol, but seems to offer little advantage over paracetamol alone. It is likely that other methods might be equally ineffective because they all rely on similar methods of heat loss. ER -