On the temperature in diseases : a manual of medical thermometry.

  • Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the temperature in diseases : a manual of medical thermometry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

    18/489 (page 2)
    for i-acli imliviilual. rmisual comlitions, ami external iiilluenccs, may iiuleed cause variations of temperature, but. tliesc arc never very great, as long ns they produce no disturbance of health. Any elevation of the axillary temperature above 99*5° {^T5° ^-t ^ any depression below 97'i° {i^'5° C.) is always very suspicious, and whether it ai)pear to be spontaneous or induced by external circumstances, can only be considered normal when all the facts of the case are known, or in very exceptional cases. The maintenance 0/ a normal temperature under varying conditions, or, in other words, a constant temperature of the body in any indi- vidual, is a proof of a sound constitution. § 4.—A normal temperature does not necessarily indicate health, but all those whose temperature either exceeds or falls short of the normal range, are unhealthy. § 5.—There are certain limits, which are rarely exceeded, in the range of temperatures observed in disease. The highest tem])eraturc yet met with in a living man, noted by a trustworthy observer, amounted to 112'55° Fahr. (= 4475^ C), whilst the range of lower temperatures is less accurately determined. But if we put aside cases which are quite exceptional, the range of temperature in the most severe diseases is between 95° Fahr. {^^^ C.) and 108-5° F. (420° C), and it is very seldom that it exceeds io94° Fahr. (43° C), or sinks below 91-4° F. (33° C). § 6.—Deviations from the normal course of temperature are cer- tainly to be regarded as significant, and as never occurring without due cause, whether we regard their origin, their amount, the course which they pursue, or their cessation. Many of these deviations may be referred to fixed laws or rules, even now (which I may call pathological thermonomy), but we sometimes fail to discover these, because in disease even much more than in health, animal heat or the temperature of the body is the result of many different, and, in fact, mutually antagonistic, factors. Besides the essential pheno- mena of disease, many accidental and collateral influences may alter the sick man^s temperature. § 7.—Influences which in no ways disturb the temperature of a healthy man, have often a very remarkable effect in causing varia-