An introduction to the diseases of infancy / by J.W. Ballantyne.

  • John William Ballantyne
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the diseases of infancy / by J.W. Ballantyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    235/292 (page 189)
    During the first half hour of life the temperature of the infant falls very distinctly; but if the child be healthy and not pre- mature, the temperature thereafter rises again to 37’2 C., or even to 37-8° C. The normal temperature during the first week of life is stated by Roger* to be 37'8° C. (100° F.); but this is too high an estimate according to Eross. In feeble and in premature infants the loss of heat after birth is inuch more marked than in healthy full-time children; and in the former, also, tlie temperature does not rise so high in the first week of life as it does in the case of the vigorous infants. In some weakly premature infants the temperature after birth may fall as low as 33° C.; but in ordinary eases the average minimum post-partum tem- perature is 35-84° C. (Eross). In the great heat-loss which occurs in weakly infants is found an explanation of the success which has attended the use of the “couveuse” or “incubator.” The weakly or premature infant is placed in the incubator, which is a wooden box heated by means of hot-water bottles; he is here surrounded by cotton wool, and bis body temperature is in this way maintained, and his chances of life greatly increased. During the first few months of life it is very difficult to say what is the normal tempera- ture of the infant, for there is at this time great thermic mobility. This irregularity is no doubt due in great measure to the incomplete development of the heat regulating mechanism of the body. Great variations in the body temperature are usually found during teeth- ing. Demme states, however, that after the first year of life the thermic oscillations are less decided, the body-heat is no longer so much affected by external influences, but now begins to be regulated in the same way as in adult life. The physiological daily thermic variations which are seen so well in the adult are also present in the infant as early, according to some observers, as the sixth day of life; but these oscillations in temperature are often obscured by the effects of disturbing external conditions, and by the instability of the internal heat-regulating mechanism. Nevertheless, in healthy infants it can often be observed that the temperature rises slowly during the day, attains its maximum about 6 p.m., and then slowly sinks to its minimum, which is reached about 2 A.M.f * “ De la temperature chez les enfants,” Arch. Oea. de Med. Paris, 1844-1845. t A very eomplete summary of the many contributions which have been recently made to the subject of the temperature in infancy is found in Kaudnitz’s Memoir [Arch, di Patol. Inf., July 1888).