Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899 — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Another important fact is this, viz.,
the normal temperature of the young and of the very old is higher
than the middle-aged. The infant at birth has a temperature of 99° F.
to 100° F., and it maintains a temperature of 99° F. and upward for
several days. The variations of temperature from other causes are much
greater in children than in adults, as also the normal daily
variations of temperature. About the sixtieth year the average
temperature of man begins to rise, and approximates that of the
infant. In the young and old the "heat-regulating power" is more
readily exhausted, and hence continued high temperature is far more
fatal to these classes.
The first noticeable fact in regard to bodily temperature in disease
is that there are daily fluctuations as in health, but much more
extreme. In general, the remission of temperature in disease occurs in
the morning, and the exacerbation in the afternoon and evening; the
minimum is reached between six and nine o'clock in the morning, and
the maximum between three and six o'clock in the evening. In many
diseases the minimum temperature is not below 100° F., and usually it
is one or two degrees above that point, while the maximum has no
definite limit and may reach the dangerous height of 107° F. It should
be noticed that the highest daily temperature in disease, as in
health, occurs in the afternoon, when the temperature of the air in
summer is the greatest.
The conditions affecting the temperature of the body other than those
due to physiological conditions are very numerous. First and most
obvious is the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. It is a
well-established fact that an average temperature of the air of 54° F.
is best adapted to the public health, for at that temperature the
decomposition of animal and vegetable matter is slight, and normal
temperature is most easily maintained. Every degree of temperature
above or below that point requires a more or less effort of the
heat-regulating power to maintain the proper equilibrium. Even more
potent in elevating the bodily temperature is the introduction into
the blood, whether by respiration or by direct injection, of putrid
fluids and the gases of decomposing matters. If this injection is
repeated at short intervals, death will occur with a high temperature.
The air of cities contains emanations, in hot weather, from a vast
number of sources of animal and vegetable decomposition, and the
inhalation of air so vitiated brings in contact with the blood these
deleterious products in a highly divided state which cause a fatal
elevation of temperature in the young, old, and enfeebled. The same
effect is produced by the air in close and heated places, as in
tenement houses, workshops, schoolhouses, hospital wards, and other
rooms where many persons congregate for hours. Air thus charged with
poisonous gases becomes more dangerous if the temperature of the
place is raised, as happens almost daily in the summer months in
cities.
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