Roman Fever (disease)

Roman fever refers to a particularly deadly strain of malaria that affected Rome, Italy, throughout various epochs in history;^[1] an epidemic of Roman fever during the fifth century AD may have contributed to the fall of the Roman empire. It was thought that Roman fever was contracted at night, and thus that it was dangerous to venture out, a belief that American authors Henry James and Edith Wharton employ in their stories "Daisy Miller" and "Roman Fever," respectively. In 835, the celebration of Hallowmas was moved from May to November at the behest of Pope Gregory IV, on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health considerations regarding Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives of pilgrims during the sultry summers of the region.^[2]

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