Family thermometry : a manual of thermonetry, for mothers, nurses, hospitalers, etc., and all who have charge of the sick and of the young / by Edward Seguin.

  • Seguin, Edward, 1812-1880.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Family thermometry : a manual of thermonetry, for mothers, nurses, hospitalers, etc., and all who have charge of the sick and of the young / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ideas worth preaching, I feel encouraged to rej^eat them, first to mothers. Taking mothers as types of the women who devote themselves to men from birth to death, and especially- one who as fervently wished to have a child as she now wishes to know how to take care of it, I will explain to her, and through her to all, the handicraft of thermom- etry, a recent acquisition to the noblest of arts, that of rearing.children, and of keeping up flickering life. To Madam R P.... Do not imagine. Madam, that in so doing, I intend to impose upon you an enumeration of all the ills our flesh is heir to^ with their corresponding antidotes. On the contrary, I would sooner invite you to forget the fearful names by which you have been taught to dread them, and to concentrate your attention upon the gene- ral appearances of diseases, which we call signs, and which truly—to those who have learned their meaning— signify imperilled life. The most important functions furnish such signs. The circulation ofiers some which are excellent, but are with diificulty appreciated by inexperienced persons, by means of the touch at the wrist, or of the ear over the heart. The respiration, also, gives good warnings, though more of local than of general affections. But bodily tem- perature is the true and visible index, either of steady health, of sickly tendencies, of impending or actual sick- ness, of imminent danger, or of unavoidable dissolution. The other vital signs are precious, temperature alone is always indispensable.