The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-27
VICE OF CHEAP THERMOMETERS.


Medical News
Probably no instrument claiming to regis
ter with precision Is SO Inaccurate ; as th ie
somewhat amusing to notice the blind faith
with which the average citizen depends on
these devices for indicating temperature.
AS scientific instrument each is appar-
emily entitled to a respect approaching rev.
erence, and it's dicta are not to be question
ed. The fact is that the variations among
a dozen ordinary thermometers will often
amount to FIVE or six degrees-as any
can see who will glance at a druggists WIN
dow. With thermometers used for scientific
work there is. OF course, less variation, but
their inaccuracy Is often considerable. and
in clinical instruments ii may easily be so
great as to affect physician,s diagnosis.
prominent hospital in this city has
scarcely recovered from the shock OF re-
cent discovery made by the memoirs of its
house staff-namely, that the Thermometers
in regular use In its wards vary so much
as to render valueless the temperature
charts which well-trained nurs IS have been
taught to regard as one of tn Fir chief re-
sponsibilities. 1t is rude awakening. In
deed, for a physician suddenly to be made
to realize that he has been treating for
fever patients who have no fever, and that
patients have been discharged cured
whose temperatures were far from normal.
Think of the wasted energy OF sponge baths
and of tubbings, Of antipyretics used with
out due warrant, of fluid diets forced upon
half-starved convalescents who longed for
solid food and would have been all the
better for it, of patients kept in bed and
in the hospital when they might have bene-
flied by freedom of out of doors. These are
no imaginary evils; they are errors actually
committed, and errors which we have no
doubt are being repeated to-day in many of
best hospitals. where every possible
care is supposed to be lavished on patients.
Is this the hospital management of which
Americans proud?
In the hospital whose experience has been
made known to us actual tests of groups
of thermometers used in the same wards
a ma lad
ences too striking and too serious to be
lightly passed over. In some cases these
differences were as great as rs degrees
prove embarrassing In diagnosis and mis-
I5ading In treatment. This intolerable state
of affairs has existed apparently for long
tme-the inevitable fruit of Policy which
seeks to divorce economy and efficiency.
Good thermometers are costly; cheap ones
flood the market, and the tide rises even
unto the sacred precincts OF hospital wards.
patients welfare.
1t is not in hospitals alone that the vice
OF cheap thermometers has taken root. In
the stock of the average drug store in this
city will be found small number of clini-
cal thermometers reliably certified and
a much larger number bearing certificates
of doubtful authenticity or having no GER
tfficate at all. These latter represent the
practice of private physicians and the pub
lie in taking of temperature at home. Most
OF these thermometers are cheap; many of
tneIi die oiu anu All Oh tnen are unrelia-
BILE; because even when they happen to be
accurate we cannot feel sure of them, and
we are bound to question and perhaps to
discount their evidence. We have been ac-
corded the privilege of testing selections
from retail stocks, but we have found that
variations of two degrees are not uncom-
mon.
Here is a matter of vital concern to the
profession and the public. The voluntary
testing and certifcation of thermometers
by recognized experts is safeguard within
the reach of those who are willing to pay
for IL. Inasmuch as this protection is so
commonly neglected, however. the question
may well be raised whether compulsory
certifcation is not desirable.