Traditional Chinese Medicine Parenting: Question 3 If a child's fever is not treated promptly, can it develop into pneumonia?

Answer: This question is similar to asking whether an untreated fever could lead to conditions like enteritis, meningitis, or leukemia. While these appear to be different diseases, they actually stem from the same root cause. As mentioned earlier, a fever is merely the body's defense mechanism against external pathogens, indicating that the body's vital energy is strong (just observe how few adults experience fevers nowadays). For those interested, you can refer to Chapter 31 of the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), which is dedicated to the discussion of fever.

Western medicine doesn't understand this principle and often uses antibiotics to reduce the fever, inadvertently driving the external pathogen deeper into the body. Once the external pathogen enters deeper into the body, it follows the meridians: if it reaches the lungs, it results in what is known as pediatric pneumonia; if it reaches the gastrointestinal tract, it leads to pediatric enteritis; if it travels along the Du meridian to the brain, it causes pediatric meningitis; and in the unfortunate event that it enters the bloodstream via the Du meridian, it can cause pediatric leukemia. Therefore, a simple cold, when treated improperly by someone unfamiliar with this concept in Western medicine, can lead to many subsequent illnesses.

The most harmful thing in the world is to mistake the effect for the cause, to confuse right with wrong. 

This explains why many parents are puzzled when their child's simple cold and fever suddenly escalates into pneumonia or meningitis. To answer this question, I'll quote a passage from the Theory of Heat (from the Huangdi Neijing): "When a person is injured by cold, it results in fever; even if the fever is severe, it will not be fatal. However, if one contracts cold from both internal and external sources, death is inevitable." In simple terms, fever is caused by cold damage, and it is not fatal by itself. 

However, if cold-inducing medications are used to suppress the fever, the external symptom turns into an internal condition, which can be fatal. Modern antibiotics are the quickest and most potent cold-inducing medications that suppress the body.