Learn English – “Starve a fever, sleep a concussion”. What does it mean

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I'm watching an American Dad episode (S9E17), and one of the characters (Francine) say this sentence:

Well, come on. With a head trauma like this, you should get right into
bed. It's like they say, "starve a fever, sleep a concussion"

I really don't get the meaning of this joke (i think it's a joke…), can someone help me to understand, or to translate it in French?

Best Answer

Firstly - I'm not a doctor, but I would suggest that if you do feel the urge to sleep with a concussion that there's someone to look after you!

This comes from the phrase feed a cold, starve a fever, which expresses the belief that eating more cures a cold, eating less cures a fever.

I'm not sure how much truth there is to this, but Wiktionary has some translations, including French:

nourrir un rhume et affamer une fièvre

With my rudimentary French, I'm sure that's a literal translation, though.

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