Observations on the temperature of the body in the insane / by T. S. Clouston.

  • Clouston, T. S. (Thomas Smith), 1840-1915.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the temperature of the body in the insane / by T. S. Clouston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    2/16 (page 2)
    found that to get the temperature of the body in the insane perfectly accurate, the thermometer had to be kept in the axilla in many cases for seven or eight minutes, the time varying exceedingly in different cases, but that in most cases the mercury had risen nearly to its maximum at the end of four minutes. Knowing that the general use of such an in- strument in the wards of an asylum must depend chiefly on the facility and speed with which it can be used, and wish- ing to produce a useful standard rather than an absolutely accurate one, I fixed on four minutes as the time during which to leave the instrument in the axilla in every case. The obser- vations were made in the winter months. I am aware that the numbers examined, especially in the case of some of the forms of insanity, are too small to give a correct average, but they were all I had the means of ob- serving, and even in the case of those forms of insanity of which there are fewest patients in this asylum, there is always a “fair selection ” of cases. The results may serve to indicate the direction of the truth, if they are not quite con- clusive. I took the temperatures of 305 patients in all, making two observations each day a patient was examined—one in the morning, another in the evening. On the days in which I was from home, or otherwise engaged, the temperatures were taken by my assistant, Dr. Campbell, but the great majority I took myself. Some of the patients I examined as many as thirty-five times within a period of five months. Such were usually excited patients, or those passing from one state into another, general paralytics, epileptics, and phthisical patients. Only by such frequent examinations can a good average be got in such cases. In many patients taking the temperatures was a most formidable business indeed. Many of the maniacal patients resisted most violently, and had to be held by force while it was being done. The destruction of thermometers has been considerable. The uses and effects of putting the instrument under the arm were the subject of many and strange specu- lations among the patients. The favourite theory among the women was that I was finding out the amount of ill- temper in each of them, and many a sly inuendo was put forth as to the quantity that would be found in certain of the touchy and irascible. Great anxiety was usually manifested to know at the conclusion if there was much ill-temper found.