28 



TEMPERATURE FLUCTUATIONS IN THE HUMAN BODY. 



tiveness. Having determined the corrected potentiometer balance, the 

 temperature difference between the two junctions is found at once by refer- 

 ence to the calibration curves, where the relation between these two quantities 

 is shown. The oven-temperature is computed to the nearest hundredth 

 from the reading of the Beckmann thermometer. The body-temperature in 

 any particular case is then found by subtracting the temperature difference 

 from the temperature in the constant oven. The computations by means 

 of which the various temperatures in the foregoing sample experiment were 

 obtained are given in table 4. 



Table 4. Computations for the experiment. 



PRECISION OF MEASUREMENT. 



To meet the approximate demands of a precision discussion, the potenti- 

 ometer balance may be assumed as directly proportional to the temperature 

 difference between the hot and cold thermal junctions; hence the relation 

 between the two can be expressed by a single factor, rather than by a curve. 

 An approximate value of this factor, by which the potentiometer balance 

 should be multiplied to give the temperature difference, is 0.094, 



