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.

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    that the evening tem])eratures may occasionally show an approach to even febrile degrees, and even higher transient elevations of tempe- rature may occur here and there. After all^ the fever in these cases of acute rheumatism, is only of moderate, or at the most, medium severity/. Apart from its brief acme it remains at heights which only exceptionally exceed the bounds of moderate fever. § 3. There are, however, many, and varied exceptions to this medium, and throughout favorable sort of course; which, however, when all comprehended together, scarcely reach the number of the former kind. Ahnormally mild cases are particularly common, or rather cases in which the temperature is either very slightly or, perhaps, not at all affected; although the local condition is not always correspondingly insignificant. Indeed, w'e cannot always tell why the fever should remain so trifling, or perhaps be altogether absent, when the joint affection is very severe; and cardiac complications are by no means excluded by the absence of fever. Cases with slight fever (not above 38'5° C. (ioi*3° F.), or with only sub-febrile temperatures, consti- tute about one third of all the cases of acute rheumatism. All other deviations from the course described, comprehending more or less severe cases altogether, do not, at least in our country, amount to more than one sixth of the cases. § 4. One of the commonest forms assumed is the//-o^/'ac/f^^ (Len- tescirende) type. The duration of the disease in this is essentially lengthened. The fever persists as late as the fourth or fifth week. The daily differences are usually far more considerable, and thus the temperature may fall to normal in the morning hours, whilst in the evening the fever is more or less considerable, and indeed, generally exceeds 40° C. (104° F.) Numerous abnormalities and changes of type are met with, and the temperature only very gradually returns to normal. Large daily fluctuations show themselves most strik- ingly when the affection of the joints and articulations becomes fixed; and thus fluctuations of three degrees or more (== 54° F.) may occur in one day. Recrudescence of the fever, or apparently objectless intercurrent elevations of temperature are by no means rare. Eight in the