Relating to a substance that reduces fever or protects against febrile (feverish) conditions.
From Greek alexein (to ward off) + pyretos (fever). This compound was created in medical terminology to describe fever-reducing remedies. The pyret- root also appears in 'pyrexia' (fever).
Before thermometers, doctors couldn't actually measure fever—they just felt heat and called 'alexipyretic' anything that made a patient feel cooler, which might have been ice water, bloodletting, or pure placebo.
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