General nursing / by Eva C.E. Lückes.

  • Lückes, Eva C. E. (Charlotte Ellis), 1854-1919.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General nursing / by Eva C.E. Lückes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bodies do contain fluid ; therefore, we lose heat, to some extent, by conduction and by radiation, but evaporation is our chief means of loss. Our bodies produce heat and lose heat. I will not attempt to describe the manner in which we produce heat, but it is useful to grasp the fact that our mean temperature is the balance between the production of heat in us and the loss of heat from us; and either the production or the loss may be increased or diminished, and so the temperature rises or falls. To be more explicit, if we produce heat in excess, and do not lose heat in the same proportion, our temperature rises ; if we do not produce more than the normal amount of heat, but lose less than the normal amount of heat, our temperature rises. The increase of temperature is usually due to our not losing the normal amount by evaporation. This brings us to the more practical part of our subject. As heat materially assists in producing rapid evaporation, the application of it is frequently employed for this purpose, and the temperature is thus lowered. Heat can be either dry or moist. We can bear the appli- cation of dry heat at a much higher temperature than that of moist heat. An excess of dry heat hums; an excess of moist heat scalds. The temperature of dry heat which can com- fortably be tolerated, in a Turkish bath, for instance, would scald if it were moist heat. The atmosphere can only absorb a certain amount of moisture. If the atmosphere has absorbed its full amount, evaporation cannot take place, and one chief means of losing heat is prevented. Heat, both moist and dry, can be subdivided in the same way as rest and cold, i.e. in the general application of it to the whole body, and the partial appHcation of it to reheve or cure locally. As a means of treatment, the general application of heat, both dry and moist, has to be studied.