What is "miliary fever"

n. epidemic in the 15th and 16th centuries and characterized by profuse sweating and high mortality [syn: sweating sickness]

Miliary fever was a medical term in the past ( Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death report showed this term), used to indicate a general cause of infectious disease that cause an acute fever and skin rashes similar to the cereal grain called proso millet.
After subsequent advances in medicine, this term fell into disuse, supplanted by other more specific names of diseases, for example the modern miliary tuberculosis.