Formal Body-Temperature. 



123 



jects are given in table 48 and cover 31 days of 24 hours each. The average 

 temperature for all the subjects was 36.67 C. (98 F.). As has been pointed 

 out in a previous discussion, the absence of food does not tend to materially 

 lower the body-temperature, and a comparison of the results in the two tables 

 shows that subsequent data likewise emphasize this point. 



DURING WAKING HOURS IN SHORT EXPERIMENTS. 



Eecords of body-temperature with the rectal thermometer during the waking 

 hours in short experiments are shown in table 49. The subjects were, with one 

 exception, young men who had eaten ordinary amounts of food or who had 

 been without food for some hours and did not work. These results are of 

 unusual interest as indicating the average temperature of the human body 

 during the hours of the day when the subjects might normally visit a physician's 

 office. Some 15 experiments were made with 7 subjects, and they usually ex- 

 tended from 8 in the morning until late in the afternoon. The number of 

 observations in each experiment varied from 4 to 11, and the average body- 

 temperature for all the subjects was 36.74 C, or 98.1 F. 



Table 49. Body-temperature with rectal thermometer during waking hours 



in short experiments. 



1 The records were in each case taken at regular intervals throughout the dav. 



NORMAL BODY-TEMPERATURE. 



The idea of constancy in body-temperature has become so generally accepted 

 that it is commonly believed that the body remains at the temperature of 

 98.6 F., or 37 C, without material change other than that produced by 

 disease. This impression is so firmly fixed that one finds to-day on all clinical 

 thermometers a special mark opposite this temperature to indicate what is 



