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Observations on the Temperature of the Body in the Insane
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2018
Extract
When I was engaged a short time ago in trying to determine accurately the effects of certain medicines on maniacal and epileptic patients, the temperature of the body in those patients was one of the things noted by me; and being unable to find in any book the normal standard in the insane, I made and analysed 2000 observations of temperature, so that I might have a standard with which to compare my cases. I examined and noted the temperature of all the patients in this asylum, using the thermometer recommended by Dr. Aitken. I took the temperature in the axilla, and my object being a practical one, instead of examining the patients at the times when the maximum and minimum heat is usually found, viz., immediately after waking, and at midnight, I did so between ten and 12 o'clock in the morning, and between nine and ten o'clock at night. The patients here all get up at 6.15 a.m., and go to bed at 8 p.m. Perhaps those hours will, on the whole, be found more useful and convenient than welfare of the patients are being seriously compromised—before the most congenial treatment for a whole class of patients is established. No. This system should be recognised at once in the first plan of every new asylum as necessary, essential, and immediately required.
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- Part I.—Original Articles
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- Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1868
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