The travellers' medical guide : a brief manual for explorers, missionaries, colonists and ship-captains / by a physician.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The travellers' medical guide : a brief manual for explorers, missionaries, colonists and ship-captains / by a physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/74
    INTRODUCTORY. Requisites. (1) Clinical Thermometer.—Purpose—Construc- tion—Method of Use.—-The Self-registering Clinical Thermometer is a delicate instrument, intended to show the range of temperature of the body in febrile states, and is capable in judicious hands, of affording valuable information respecting the kind of fever present, its severity, and the probable outcome, while it to a certain extent exhibits the effect of remedies and determines the period of their useful- ness. The oncome of consumption can usually be long foretold with the aid of the thermometer by the daily slight elevation of temperature. It is important, then, to master the principles involved in its construction and use, and to possess one or two thermometers of undoubted excellence. The range of this instrument is usually from 96° Fahr. to iio°, these being the limits between which the bodily temperature may rise and fall in disease, its natural point being from 9%%° to 990 in health. A peculiarity of construction consists in the separation of a portion of the mercurial column, which portion, when raised by an excessive degree of heat, remains at the height indicated until shaken down for the next observation. In order, then, to prepare it for use, when the upper edge of the detached register is above 98^°, grasp the instrument in the fingers of the right hand as one does a pen, but more firmly, and then smartly strike the wrist upon the clenched fist of the left hand, examining the register after each blow until it has been shaken below 96°. It may then be placed in the armpit, the bulb being everywhere in contact with the skin (/.<?., with no clothing intervening), and retained there for at least five minutes. During all this time it is well to hold the arm close to the side, so that air shall be excluded as far as possible. When