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In USSR when I grew up, it was a common folk remedy (which seemed to work) to use raspberry jam (usually with tea) as fever reducer.

Specifically, it caused you to sweat a lot, not sure if that was supposed to be a side effect or an actual mechanism of lowering the fever, but the heavy sweating followed by reduced fever seemed to work at least in my anecdotal case pretty reliably.

This still seems to be a common belief.

Is there any research proving or disproving that?

user5341
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  • Soing searches in Russian shows that the supposed active chemical that would work is Salicylic acid. Not part of the claim, but may help people searching for answers? – user5341 Feb 17 '19 at 00:23
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    That's interesting, I've heard similarfolk remedy claims regarding blackcurrant (черная смородина) and its leaves with a similar application and a similar effect. It's worth noting that for many "relevant" diseases simply drinking extra hot water is beneficial; and both raspberry and blackcurrant are also considered good sources of vitamin C (perhaps a deficiency in historical regional diets?). – Peteris Feb 17 '19 at 03:15
  • Drinking [hot fluids such as tea can cool you down in some circumstances](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-hot-drink-on-a-hot-day-can-cool-you-down-1338875/), through evaporation of sweat. Sugar (sucrose, fructose) may also have a direct effect in some cases – Henry Feb 17 '19 at 14:07
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    Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is a fever-reducer. So I would not be surprised if salicylic acid is as well. Whether it is present in raspberry jam, I cannot say. – GEdgar Mar 25 '23 at 12:33
  • Aspirin is just Salicylic Acid with extra science after all. – Comic Sans Strikephim Mar 30 '23 at 08:31

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