The clinical thermoscope and uniformity of means of observation : two notes / by Edward Seguin.

  • Seguin, Edward, 1812-1880.
Date:
1875
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The clinical thermoscope and uniformity of means of observation : two notes / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    I KDWARD SEGDIN. surfaces of the body, but none favors the movement of dilation of air like the spheroid.). To make the thermoscope ready for clinical use, its bulb is heat- ed over a lamp or lire, sooner in a bowl of hot water, and when the air contained in the bulb is dilated a few degrees above the ambient temperature, the open end is quickly plunged in—an inch deep—and quickly withdrawn from another bowl of cold water. The drop or two, which will have then entered the mouth, is seen to run up the tube. If it stops near the bulb, it will be the index of the thermoscope. If it stops sooner, say two or three inches from the mouth, or if it runs into the bulb, the latter was too cold or too hot; we have to jerk away that drop of water and recommence; three or four trials to obtain a good water-index take hardly a minute. In this condition, the air contained behind the water-index makes itself isothermal to the ambient temperature, and the ther- moscope is ready. Simpler yet: Over-heat the bulb, let the water run in it. When you want an index, invert the instrument, apply your hand on top; some water will descend in the tube and form an index: then quick, fit your scale to it, look at your watch, all is ready. It is applied —I do not say introduced —like the fever or surlace-thermometers, anywhere an anomaly of caloricity is known or suspected. Its habitual place (lieu oV election) is not, however, the axilla ; it is the shut-hand. In five to ten seconds the index has attained the maximum height, or fall, of any significance. To read it, we mark the starting point of the index, the termi- nus of its course, and the time (in seconds) to reach it. To take more mathematical observations, a mobile scale is at- tached to the stem, and made to slide, in order to put its lowest figure on a level with the head of the water-index; so that a ther- moscope is always correct—that is more than can be said of most of our clinical thermometers. But with or without a scale, it gives, by contact, indications, (a) at the start of the volume of heat escaping by radiation, (b) at the end of its course, of the portee or reach of its velocity ; whilst, without contact, by gently blowing on the bulb, it shows the de- gree of combustion which takes place in the lungs, and other phe- nomena of ustion which I have no place to explain.