Epaphroditus

Philippians 2:25-30 - But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.

I wonder what almost killed Epaphroditus. Did he stay outside in the cold too long and catch pneumonia? (How cold does it get where Paul was? Was he in Rome?) Did Epaphroditus go into a remote area and get bitten by some critter or poisoned by some plant that made him very ill? Did he have some more common ailment like a cold that he just didn't take care of properly letting it nearly cost him his life?

Was he over-devoting (if that's even possible) himself to the spreading of the gospel, so much so that he neglected his health? Or does Paul simply mean to say that the illness came to him in the normal course of his service to the Lord?