Family thermometry : a manual of thermometry, for mothers, nurses, hospitalers, etc., and all who have charge of the sick and of the young / by Edward Seguin.
- Édouard Séguin
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Family thermometry : a manual of thermometry, for mothers, nurses, hospitalers, etc., and all who have charge of the sick and of the young / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![It is managed thus: first delicately applied, not pressed, upon the skin at the point to be observed. Two fingers hold it above, not upon the column of mercury (for fear of increasing the heat), as long as the metal rises. Then the result is read and registered, and the instru- ment, cooled a few degrees, is re-applied to another part, whose temperature in health is known to be like (isother- mal to) that of the now sick one. Proceeding here with the instrument as above, one reads and registers the re- sult, which subtracted from the result of the former operation, leaves a difference, which expresses the de- grees of fever of the inffamed spot. Tlie same operation takes less time when it is simul- taneously performed on the two select points with a ]3air of surface-thermometers well-matched to work together : both procedures are optional. It is out of my plan to enumerate the local affections in which the surface thermometer finds its usefulness; but it is in my plan to show the general bearing of its indications. These indications, compared among themselves from day to day, will show a mother that local affections are, like the more general ones, susceptible of periods of effer- vescence or increase, and present an acme or summit, followed by a decrease or defervescence. From this observation, the mother will learn not to fidget over little, though painful infiammations, boils, earaches, etc., but to soothe them, according to their stage during their evo- lution ; not to distrust her physician because he does not interfere with the natural process of cure; and if in her impatience she has called another one, not to over-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24991715_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
