History Main / BrainFever

* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}},'' the title character is in the hospital for an embarrassing rash, and [[CoolLoser Jane]], trying to [[BadLiar make up an excuse]] for her whereabouts, tells [[DumbBlonde Brittany]] that she has brain fever. ("[[ShapedLikeItself It's a thing that brains get]]," but usually goes away after you read a bestseller.) Ironically the rash turns out to be [[AllergicToLove stress-related]], so it sort of fits this trope itself.

* Played completely straight in ''Film/BrandUponTheBrain''. Mind you, Creator/GuyMaddin plays straight a lot of tropes that nobody else uses now--or [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs ever]].

* In Jules Massanet's opera ''Cendrillon'' (''Literature/{{Cinderella}}''), after Cinderella is forced to leave the ball at midnight, and then believes her stepmother's lie that Prince Charming made insulting remarks about her after she left, she runs into the forest to die, and is found lying in a feverish delirium that last for months afterwards. When she finally recovers, she thinks the ball and the prince were [[AllJustADream all just a part of her delusions]]... that is, until she learns about the search for TheGirlWhoFitsThisSlipper.

* Victor Frankenstein from ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' had at least three bouts that lasted months, one of which was brought on by seeing his own monster. And the others from seeing its victims.

* In ''Therese'', the title character becomes ill for two weeks after her oldest and favorite sister leaves to become a nun.

* In ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'', Sara's father dies of brain fever after going bankrupt. In just about every film version, he dies (or rather, [[DisneyDeath "dies"]]) in a war instead (UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar in the 1939 version and UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in the 1995 version).

Often, particularly in young women, brain fever was treated by [[TraumaticHaircut having all their hair cut off]]. This may seem, even by standards of pre-germ theory medicine, to have no point except to add pathos to the patient's suffering, but cutting off long hair was seen as allowing air to more easily circulate about the scalp, lowering the temperature of the brain. Though it might have been so women could more easily move around, [[RapunzelHair since it was standard to have knee to calf length hair.]]

** ''Series/{{Mars}}'': It gave Qi Luo an excuse to take care of Chen Ling all night long.

* This non-specific illness strikes Corrigan's child in 1915 silent film ''Film/TheItalian''. And it doesn't appear to be something real like meningitis, because in the movie absolute silence is crucial to the girl's recovery, which would hardly be likely for a real illness, except for heat-induced migraines, since the baby contracted the fever during a heatwave, noting in passing that common febrile seizures were not well know at this time and could easily be confused with another heat-related malady.

* A historical register from 1889 lists "brain fever" as the cause of [[Literature/LittleHouseOnThePrairie Mary Ingalls's]] blindness. Her sister Creator/LauraIngallsWilder labeled her illness as scarlet fever in her book series, but as "some sort of spinal sickness" in her personal writing, and modern doctors tend to think it was most likely meningoencephalitis. At any rate, unlike fictional brain fevers, it wasn't caused by emotion.

* In "Literature/MadameBovary" the protagonist falls ill with brain fever after her lover, Rodolph, cancels his plan to run away with her.

* ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'': Frankenstein has at least three bouts that last months, one of which was brought on by seeing his own monster. And the others from seeing its victims.