system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Historically, why did fevers used to kill so many people, but now they're a rarely fatal annoying symptom?
gpt
"Fever" was just a colloquial term used to describe any illness that presented a raised temperature.  Ebola will kill you, influenza may kill you, a common cold probably wont. All three of these illnesses were referred to by their symptoms aka. "She died of a fever after visiting Africa". We know now the underlying cause of the fever and can treat (and name) not only the illness, but the fever itself, much more successfully.