On the temperature of the body as a means of diagnosis in phthisis and tuberculosis / by Sydney Ringer.

Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the temperature of the body as a means of diagnosis in phthisis and tuberculosis / by Sydney Ringer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    43/120 (page 33)
    with a considerable amount of moist rhonchus, is insufficient to cause any such elevation. More- over, the temperature was taken by Mr. Arnott in one case of dilated bronchi, and it was found to be normal. Carcinoma of the lung not unfrequently simulates phthisis. In one case of this disease the temperature was taken by Mr. Arnott, who found it to be con- stantly normal. Thus it is possible that the tempe- rature is a means of distinguishing between these two conditions of lung. Aneurisms of the aorta also, when too small to produce pressure, or to give evidence of their exist- ence by dulness on percussion, sometimes allow a small quantity of blood to pass through their walls, which may be expectorated, and thus lead to the conclusion that the patient is the subject of phthisis. Here again we think it probable that the temperature will serve to guide us to a correct conclusion, for in one case of aneurism the temperature was most carefully taken ; but on every occasion it was found to be quite normal.* Another case was observed by my friend Dr. EAck- ards; here the temperature was always normal. In diseases of the brain closely simulating tuber- cular meningitis the temperature affords us a means of distinguishing between them. Thus Charles * The temperature of this patient was taken by Mr. C. E. Squarey, who was the physician's assistant in University College Hospital at that time. D