Adoption of thermometry into clinical practice in the United States

Technologic advances in thermometer design and conceptual advances in the understanding of homeostasis between 1700 and 1850 led to recognition of the usefulness of measuring body temperature in human disease. These advances took place in Europe and Great Britain, culminating in the publication in 1868 of the seminal work on fever in human disease by Carl Wunderlich. In the United States thermometry was popularized by a number of distinguished American physicians who used European data that had appeared in British and American journals even before 1868. Thus Edward Seguin and Austin Flint included fever curves and vital signs in articles that appeared in 1866. Flint and Jacob DaCosta added sections on thermometry to their medical textbooks in 1866-1867, and Edouard Seguin (the father of Edward) encouraged the use of thermometry by the public at large in a series of articles in the medical and lay press. Within just two decades thermometry became recognized as an indispensable medical tool, which it remains to the present time.