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.

    442/489 (page 426)
    amounting to a few tenths of a degree. Ilerr llofratli Unlcrhcrfjer, Professor of Veterinary Surgery in Dorpat, has informed mc in a letter, that he has observed temperatures of above 43° C. (107*6° Falu.), in fatal cases of tetanus in horses. These facts, taken in conjunction with the equally extraordinary high temperatures which are observed in tissue changes of the brain and upper ])art of the spinal cord, appear to show as has been ad- duced already (pp. 150 and 195) that there are, apparently, mode- rating centres or apparatus in the brain, the paralysis of which is succeeded by a morbidly increased action of the processes which produce warmth. This observation is of practical importance, because it indicates that any considerable elevation of temperature in patients suffering from neuroses, when no particular reason can be assigned for the fever which is developed, affords the worst possible prognosis. Mt/ own piihlicatluns on this behaviour of the temperature may be found in the 'Archiv der Ileilkunde' for 1861, ii, 547; 1862, iii, 175; and 1864, v, 205; and those of Erb in the 'Deutsch. Archiv fiir klinische Medicin,^ 1866, i, 175. [In addition to the author's remarks on neuroses, I may just re- mind the reader of the remarks made at pp. 106—145, &c., 195 and the note to p. 225. In studying the temperature in neuroses, we have, of course, to eliminate the influence upon temperature of the primary cause of the neurosis; thus, for instance, in most of the fatal cases of chorea, this symptom supervenes upon acute rheu- matism or scarlet fever, whilst in most of the cases which recover the setiology is obscure or utterly unknown. Of the latter class of cases, Br. Finlayson states that in a girl aged 9:^ suffering from chorea, the average of six observations of morning temperature was 99-01° Tahr. (37*22° C.) in the rectum, whilst the average evening tempe- rature of eleven observations was 103*21° Fahr. (39*56° C). In a boy aged jo^ the average of eleven morning observations was 99*44° Fahr. (37*46° C.); and that of thirteen evening temperatures was 98*93° Fahr. (37*18° C). //. Eager also states that in chorea there is little or no alteration of temperature. Br. Long Fox ('Med. Times and Gazette,' 1870), says the temperatures in chorea are seldom over 99° Fahr., often less, or below normal. I myself have often observed sub-normal temperatures (97° and 96° Fahr. = 36*1° and -i^c^'^P C), in feeble children sufi'ering from the common forms