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.

    419/489 (page 403)
    XX. OSTEO-MYELITIS. In acute osteo-myelitis, wliicli resembles typlius \iyplioid fever] in many respects, and has, therefore, been called bone-typhus, the course of the temperature only very imperfectly and, it would appear, exceptionally, coincides with some typhoid attacks. Of six cases which came under my own observation, five displayed a brief and somewhat continuous course till the fatal termination ; in three it lasted eight days, in one fourteen days, in the fifth case the commencement was not accurately determined ; the whole course even in this did not last over a fortnight. Pour of these cases were observed in the last two to five days, and one was noted only on the day of death. This case died with a temperature of 407° C. (io5'36°r.), and after death the temperature rose to 4i'i° C. (= 105*98° E.). In the remainder the bounds of pretty high fever 40-5 C. (=104*9° r.) ^®^^ never exceeded. The course of the tem- ])erature displayed irregular, but on the whole trifling fluctuations, and only isolated deeper falls of temperature (to 38*4° and 38*6° C. = ioi*a° to 101*48°r.). The contrast was always remarkable between the temperature, which was never immoderate, and the enormous frequency of the pulse (which in one case was 188 per minute, twelve hours before death), and this contrast was only absent in one case. In contradistinction to these not very typhoid-like courses of temperature, there was one case which came under observation on the seventh day of the disease, in which the affection was pretty soon limited to the left femur, and gradually improved at a later date. During the whole of the second week this exhibited the remittent course of abdominal typhus (up to the twelfth day a daily maximum of 39*8° to 40° =^ -103*64° to 104°]?., and a daily minimum of 38*6° to 39*2° = 101*48° to 102*56° F.; and from the twelfth day assumed a descending direction with considerable remissions), and, indeed, in such wise that even the brain-symptoms and those of the intestines and spleen corresponded to a severe attack of typhoid fever, and the diagnosis remamed in suspense during the whole of that week. Further on, when the fever moderated, the course assumed a hectic type.