Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

1867] Use of Thermometer in Diagnosis, etc. 469Use of theThermometer in Diagnosis and Prognosis.The number of the Neio York Medical Journal for Novemberlast contains some interesting remarks by Prof.Austin Flint on the thermometric phenomena of disease,a subject which has latterly engaged the attention ofclinical observers in Germany and Great Britain. Thefollowing propositions contain the substance of his remarks:1. The thermometer is indispensable for obtaining accurateinformation of the temperature of the body, theperceptions of patients and the sense of heat or coldnesscommunicated tofallacious.the hand of the physician being alike2. In the essential fevers and all acute affections, theheat of the body ishealth ;more or less above the maximum ofand the increase of heat, as a rule, persists duringthe career of the disease. Fevers and acute affectionsmay, therefore, be excluded by the fact of the heat of thebody remaining within the limits of health ;and the existenceof an essential fever or an acute affection of somekind may be predicated on a persistent increase of heat.3. A fever is purely malarial, that is, it is not a continuedfever, nor is it associated with a continued fever,if, between the exacerbations, the temperature fall nearlyor quite to the range of health.4. The diagnosis of neuropathic affections which simulateinflammations may be based on the fact of the temperaturenot being raised.5. Coma from uraemia may be discriminated from thecoma occurring in fevers or dependent on meningitis, byfinding the temperature not raised; and in cases ofuraemia, coma, and convulsions, intercurrent inflammatoryaffections may be excluded if the temperature remainnormal.