The practical medicine of to-day : two addresses delivered before the British Medical Association, and the Epidemiological Society / by Sir William Jenner.

  • Jenner, William, Sir, 1815-1898.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practical medicine of to-day : two addresses delivered before the British Medical Association, and the Epidemiological Society / by Sir William Jenner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    body generally, is the only evidence of the existence of pyrexia—of fever in the abstract; that if there be no elevation of temperature there is no fever; that the only mode of practically determining the existence of elevation of temperature, and if estimating its degree, is by the use of the thermometer. Although great elevation of temperature may be deter- mined by the hand of the observer, yet there may be very decided elevation of temperature without the hand detect- ing it. And certainly the hand of the ordinary observer gives no correct idea of the degree of elevation. The in- dexed thermometer ranks in importance with the stetho- scope. I will illustrate the value to us as practitioners of this advance in our knowledge in regard of diagnosis, by re- ference to its value in the diagnosis of three common diseases. There is a form of typhoid fever with which we are all familiar, that has been termed latent typhoid fever—a form in which the patient is from the commencement to the termination of the disease able to walk about, and even to follow his ordinary occupations. This is a form of the disease in which the patient not very infrequently dies from perforation of his bowel, or from intestinal haemor- rhage, even though, as is usual, the evidences of bowel- irritation have been trifling. The diagnosis of this prac- tically-important variety of typhoid fever is often all but impossible without the use of the thermometer; with its aid it is comparatively, and it may be absolutely, easy.