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.

    48/489 (page 32)
    cfie: les lufauts a Vviat phjjs'wlvijiquc etpaf/toloy'iquc, published in 1S44 in the ' Archiv Genor./ scric 4, torn, iv—ix, [and republislicd st>p;irati'l\. 'J'horo is u co])y in Ihe Obstetrical Society's library, of wiiich 1 have availed myself.—Trans.]). After some preliminary observations on the methods of thermometry, Jiof/cr adduces obser- vations on the normal tcm})eraturc of children (at birth, during the tirst seven days, and at a later period), as well as in ephemera, in- termittenl, and t vphoid fevers, smalli)ox, scarlatina, measles, erysipelas, rheumatism, pericarditis, cardiac hy])ertroi)liy, stomatitis, enteritis, dysentery, meningitis, encephalitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia; and still further, in tuberculosis, hooping-cough, chorea, dro])sies, rickets, and paralysis; not to mention thrush and the oedema (sclereme) of newly born infants. finally, at pp. 261—297 of torn, ix, he sums up the results obtained in a very practical manner, in their application to diagnosis and prognosis. Such a wealth of thermometric fact had never before been accumulated, and Roger himself was well aware of the practical importance of his experiments. If, however, we are forced to confess that his great work does not express the full value of pathological thermometry, the explanation must be sought in the fact that the observations were not reported sufficiently often in the several cases (very often the temperature was only taken once in the disease), and especially in the fact that Roger strove rather to esti- mate and compare the positive rise or fall of temperature in various diseases, than to indicate the course of the temperature in any given disease, which is far more important. ]\'oue the less, on this account, are Roger''s summaries and deductions of great interest even in the present day, and they contain many fine observations. Demarquay published a contribution to experimental pathology, in which he investigated the influence of pain, of loss of blood, of the ligature of blood-vessels, of traumatic inflammations, of ob- struction of the bowels, and of various toxic agents on the tempe- rature of animals. (Recherclies experimentales sur la temperature Dissert., 1847), and conjointly with JJumerr'd, '^Experiments on the elTect of ether and chloroform in lowering temperature'^ (it548, 'Arch. Gener.,' 4 serie, tom. xvi, p. 189.) About this time, George Ziinmermann, an army surgeon at Hamm, began to make very numerous observations on temperature. His first publications are to be found in the 'Med. Zeiting d. A^ereins f. lleilkundc in Preussen,' i'^^6, Nos. jO and 40, and almost immediately after.