On the temperature in diseases : a manual of medical thermometry.
- Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich
- Date:
- 1871
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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![rjiture may still go on. This ascent to the summit or acynS of the temperature of the paroxysm is generally quite steady and uninter- rupted; at the furthest the temperature halts once or so, for a few minutes at some given point; or occasionally there occurs a slight fluctuation just close to the highest point [so that the summit is slightly bifid]. The maximum of the temperature is reached in the stage of dry heat, though sometimes perhaps, after the appearance of partial sweating. It only lasts for a few minutes. When the sweating becomes general [moist stage], the tempera- ture begins to fall again, only slowly for the first hour or half hour; and sometimes it fluctuates a little ; then it begins to fall somewhat more rapidly, without any fresh rise occurring: it does so, however, in such a way that the temperature halts for a quarter or even half an hour, and then falls about one or two tenths of a degree Cent. (= one fifth to one third of a degree Tahr. nearly), then rests again, then begins to fall again and so on (so as to resemble terraces) ; M'hen this has continued some four hours or so, and the temperature has fallen to somewhere about 40° C. (104° Fahr.), it sinks some- what more rapidly; requiring, however, some ten or twelve hours or more before it regains the normal point. During the intermission or apyrexia which succeeds, the tempera- ture is sometimes a little under the normal; but if the apyrexia lasts more than one day, there is a very slight evening exacerbation, which scarcely exceeds the range of a normal daily fluctuation. Not infrequently, especially after the use of febrifuges (quinine, &c.), there occur paroxysms without any subjective symptoms, which only announce themselves by the elevated temperature, and run their course without a rigor and without any sweating or only very trifling- perspiration. The maximal height in these attacks may equal, or very nearly so, that of the perfect fever paroxysm; the rise and fall of temperature are, however, compressed within a briefer period than is the case in paroxysms accompanied with a rigor.^ ' As the two facts of the rise of temperature during the cold stage, and the existence of paroxysms of fever (as shown by the thermometer) after the apparent cure by antiperiodics—attacks which are scarcely known to the patient himself—are still unknown to a large number of medical men, and even denied by some, although recognised by dc Haeu (see Chapter II of this work), it is jicrhaps not superfluous to remark that I have often verified this observation, and have demonstrated the fact to others. Were it necessary I could easily furnish corroborative cases from my note-book,—[Teans.1 27](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20997139_0433.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
