Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-08-17
BAD THERMOMETERS
Harm Done in Hands of Persons
 Without Medical Knowledge.
COnsnon Instruments Valueless in Determining the Temperature of Patients-Matter of Wiz
 tal Concern.


 register with precision is so inaccurate as the average thermometer. This be- ing so, it is somewhat amusing to no- tice the blind faith with which the av- craze citizen depends on these devices for indicating temperature. AS "sc1- entific instrument each is apparently entitled to a respect approaching rev. erence, and it's dicta are not to be questioned says the Medical News. The fact is that the variations among a dozen ordinary thermometers will cften amount to five or six degrees as any one can see who will glance at druggists window. With thermome- ters used for scientific work there is, of course, less variation, but their in- accuracy is often considerable, and in clinical instruments it may easily be so great as to affect physicians diag- nosis.
 A prominent hospital in this city has scarcely recovered from the shock of a recent discovery made by the mem bers of its house staff-namely, that the thermometers in regular use in it's wards vary so much as to render valueless the temperature charts which well-trained nurses have been taught to regard as one of their chief responsibilities. It is a rude awaken ing, indeed, 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 as cured whose tenpera- lures were far from normal. Think of the wasted energy of sponge baths and of tubbings, of antipyretics used without due warrant of fluid diets forced upon half-starved convalescents who longed for solid food, and would have been all the better for 1t; of pa tients kept in bed and in the hospital when they might have benefited by freedom of out of doors. These are no imaginary evils; they are errors actu- ally committed, and errors which we have no doubt are being repeated to-, day in many of our best hospitals, where every possible care is supposed to be lavished on patients. Is this the hospital management of which Ameri- cans are so proud?
 Tn the hospital, whose experience has been made known to us, actual tests of groups of therm ometers used in the same wards and on the same patients revealed differences too striking and too seri- ous to be lightly passed over. Tn some cases these differences were as great as 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit-variations wide enough to prove embarrassing in diag- nosis and misleading in treatment, This fntolerable state of affairs has existed apparently for a long time-the inevi table fruit of a policy which seeks to di- vorce economy and efficiency. Good | thermometers are costly; cheap ones flood the market, and the tide rises even wards, where it drowns all decent regard for the patients welfare. .-, It is not in hospitals alone that the vice of cheap thermometers has taken root. Tn the stock of the average drug store in this city will be found small number of clinical thermometers, relia- bly, certificated, and much larger num- Der bearing certificates of doubtful au- thenticity or having no certificates at all. The latter represent the practice of | private physicians and the public in talk | ing of temperature at home Most of | these thermometers are cheap; many of them are old, and all of them are unre- liable, because even when they happen to be accurate we cannot feel ssure of them, and we are bound toquestion and 1 perhaps to discount the privilege of testing selections from retail stocks, but we have found that variations of two de- grees are not uncommon.
 Here is matter of vital concern to the 1 profession and the public. The volun- | tary testing and certi1cation of ther- mometers by recognized experts is a safeguard within the reach of those who are willing to pay for it. Inasmuch as this protection is so commonly neglected, however, the question may we'll be raised whether compulsory certification is not desirable.
 s DETDnT ETTNF I'M pKTDMAU