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.

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    § 7. Jaundice runs its course without elevation of temperature, unless it is of a pernicious kind, and on this account any elevation of temperature in tlie subjects of jaundice is always ominous. [The author probably refers to the jaundice of intermittents, and that met with in hepatic abscesses; or perhaps the word pernicious takes in a wider range, and refers also to the latter stages or complications of cancerous tumours.] § 8. Dropsical patients very often have a low axillary temperature; yet rises of temperature frequently occur in such cases. [Especially if the dropsy be associated with nephritis.] § 9. When alterations of temperature occur in chronic diseases, they generally show great variety in their course, even in one and the same case, in the course of time. Yet sometimes a pretty stationary and even course of temperature may be met with, lasting for not weeks only, but whole months; indeed, I have observed a chronic fever with a perfectly steady and even, though very peculiar, course, extending over a whole year. § 10. The commonest behaviour of the temperature in chronic diseases is for it to show great mobihty and susceptibility to ex- ternal influence; and for its daily fluctuations to be rather more considerable, although somewhat disorderly, so that the exacerba- tions very often begin at an earlier time in the day, and thus fre- quently approximate to the ranges of slight febrile movements, or actually reach them; and very often, too, whilst the daily remission is not quite normal (it is seldom too low, generally too high, fre- quently alternating) ; the general temperature moves, so to speak, upon a somewhat higher plane as regards the daily average, than it does in the healthy condition ; and besides this, there are occasional rises of considerable amount (not infrequently to over 40° C. = 104° Fahr.), lasting only for a few hours or a few days, and thrust- ing themselves in after the manner of an ephemera. This course of temperature may occur under the most varied conditions, and contributes next to nothing to our accurate knowledge of the given cases, only tending to show that the condition is not a normal one. § II. Whilst the morning temperatures are normal or very nearly