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.

    438/489 (page 422)
    Yot moderately febrile rises of temperature arc by no means signs of great danger; they are, however, suspicious, and denote complica- tious of some sort. !Morc considerable elevations of temperature are a sure sign of complications, and of the supervention of various local afTections, and give little prospect of recovery. Very high temperatures are particularly induced by parotitis and erysipelas, and sometimes, though less invariably, by pneumonia, which only exceptionally pursues a typical course. Patchy exanthems [roseola, &c.], do not invariably induce a rise of temperature. A normal or approximately normal course of temperature in the post-choleraic stage is, however, by no means an absolute guarantee of recovery. When the reaction assumes an actually typhoid form, the tempe- rature in many cases is normal, or only slightly elevated. It is true these are in general favorable cases with but slight development and inconsiderable local affections, yet even in these all danger is by no means got rid of. However, the temperature may rise, and that pretty considerably, even in the typhoid form, and the type is for the most part remittent. These are cases which run a stormy course, with severe local disorders, and if they do not suddenly end fatally, they lead us to expect that the disease will be protracted. Paren- chymatous nephritis occurs indifferently both in cases with moderate and those with elevated temperatures. The most unfavorable thing in the post-choleraic stage, is for a previously normal or elevated temperature to suddenly sink below normal. Even a considerable diminution of the peripheral heat [surface-warmth] at this period, indicates considerable danger. In many cases, the temperature of the body falls more or less suddenly after death. Yet m some cases when the temperature has previously been but slightly raised as well as more especially in those with already high temperatures, the temperature actually rises for some minutes, or about half an hour after death. § 4. The temperature in cholera has attracted attention for a long while, and from the time of the first appearance of the disease in Europe, thermometric observations have been published {Czermaky Goppert, LockstdcU). These earlier observations, however, were not worth much. The observations made in the years 1848-52 by Ross,