Recognizing early the importance of securing accurate body-temperatures
in researches of this kind, a number of investigations were made and
published elsewhere[15] regarding the body-temperature in connection
with the experiments with the respiration calorimeter. It was soon
found that the ordinary mercurial clinical thermometer was not best
suited for the most accurate observations of body-temperature and a
special type of thermometer employing the electrical-resistance method
was used. In many of the experiments, however, it is impracticable with
new subjects to complicate the experiment by asking them to insert the
electrical rectal thermometer, and hence we have been obliged to resort
to the usual clinical thermometer with temperatures taken in the mouth,
although in a few instances they have been taken in the axilla and the
rectum. For the best results the electrical rectal thermometer is used.
This apparatus permits a continuous measurement of body temperature,
deep in the rectum, unknown to the subject and for an indefinite period
of time, it being necessary to remove the thermometer only for
defecation.
As a result of these observations it was soon found that the body
temperature was not constant from hour to hour, but fluctuated
considerably and underwent more or less regular rhythm with the minimum
between 3 and 5 o'clock in the morning and the maximum about 5 o'clock
in the afternoon. In a number of experiments where the mercurial
thermometer was used under the tongue and observations thus taken
compared with records with the resistance thermometer, it was found that
with careful manipulation and avoiding muscular activity, mouth
breathing, and the drinking of hot or cold liquid, a fairly uniform
agreement between the two could be obtained. Such comparisons made on
laboratory assistants can not be duplicated with the ordinary subject.
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