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.

    420/489 (page 404)
    XXI.—PAREXCnYJIATOUS INFLAMMATION OF THE KiDNEYS. Acute inflammation of the kidneys (acute Bright's disease) ex- hibits very h'ttle regularity as regards the course of the temperature, whicli is apparently dependent on the varied rapidity and intensity of the attacks, and partly on the circumstances under which they are developed. The temperature is often only febrile, and perhaps only mode- rately so; in other cases it attains a height of 39*5° to 40° =i03'i° to 104° F., or even more. In cases which recover there is a gradual defervescence by lysis; in fatal cases death may occur with either a rising or falling temperature. Chronic inflammations of the kidneys (chronic Bright's disease) as a rule affects the temperature very little, and even in fatal cases terminal elevations of temperature are exceptional. [I have notes of several cases (some of which are still attending at the London Hospital) in which, after acute desquamative nephritis for the most part of scarlatinal origin, the temperature has re- mained on an elevated plane, with occasional exacerbations, accom- panied by other signs of renewed kidney mischief (such as alteration in the quantity of urine, or in the amount of albumen, or occasional hsematuria, and the occurrence of casts and epitheHum from time to time) for from two to three years; and in one case for four years. The noon temperature in these cases has remained sub-febrile (99*5° to ioo'4° F.), or slightly febrile (100-4° to 101-3° ^■)> ^ver since, whenever noted (once or twice a week), although the other symptoms of kidney mischief have been comparatively slight.— Trans.] XXII.—Hepatitis. Acute parenchymatous inflammation of the liver exhibits varieties which differ widely from one another as regards the course of the temperature; but these cases are too rare to allow one to deduce any definite common principles from them. In the form with malignant (pernicious) jaundice, whether from phosphorus poisoning or not, the temperature is sometimes un- aff'ected even till death, whilst sometimes it is moderately elevated,