Physical diagnosis / by Richard C. Cabot.

  • Richard Clarke Cabot
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physical diagnosis / by Richard C. Cabot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    37/632 (page 3)
    TEMPERATURE. 6 more diagnostic value than in infancy and childhood. In the lat- ter it is often impossible to make out any pathological condition to account for a fever. After childhood the vast majority of fevers are found to be due to: (a) Infectious disease or inflammation of any type. (b) Toxsemia without infection—a much less common and less satisfactory explanation. (c) Disturbance of heat regulation—as in sunstroke, after the use of atropine, and in nervous excitement, e.g., just after entering a hospital.] For such causes we search when the thermometer indicates fever. Types of fever often referred to are: (a) Continued fever, one which does not return to normal at any period in the twenty-four hours, as in many cases of typhoid, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. (b) Intermittent, hectic, or septic fever, one which disap- pears once or more in twenty-four hours, as in double tertian mala- ria and septic fevers of various types (including mixed infections in tuberculosis). A fever which disappears suddenly and permanently is said to end by crisis, while one which gradually p isses off in the course of several days ends by lysis. 2. Subnormal temperature is often seen in wasting disease (can- cer), nephritis, uncompensated heart disease, and myxcedema. It is rarely of diagnostic value, but is a rough measure of the degree of prostration. 3. Chills (due usually to a sudden rise in temperature) are seen chiefly in: («) Sepsis of any type. (b) Malaria. (c) Onset of acute infections. (d) Nervous states. After the passage of a catheter, after or during labor, and after 1 The latter event may also reduce (temporarily) a high fever to normal or below it.