View report page

The girls thus have a higher mean temperature than the boys, and
the variability of their temperatures is not so great.
The following table gives the percentage of children coming within
intervals of one degree of temperature:—

All these children were apparently in quite perfect health. Two
temperatures were excluded; one was that of a girl of thirteen, whose
temperature was 101.6, and was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis,
and the other was a boy, aged ten, whose temperature was 101.2, who had
inflamed tonsils.
The children were brought out of their classrooms to the
medical inspection room, and, as a rule, were in there some time before
the temperatures were taken. When the temperatures are higher than
would be expected, this cannot therefore be put down to exercise.
We see that the temperatures of children are very fax from what is
considered the normal temperature, namely 98.4 The case of those
children with temperatures under 98.0 presents a difficulty. In order
that a correct temperature may be recorded in the mouth in a reasonable
time, it is essential that the bulb of the thermometer be in contact with
mucous membrane. Some persons, however, hold the thermometer in such
a manner that the bulb is in a small hollow surrounded by air, which is
a very bad conductor of heat. In these cases it takes at least a quarter
of an hour or twenty minutes, even with the most sensitive thermometer,
to get the correct temperature. In some of the cases recorded above,
when a temperature of! 97.0 was found in the usual three to five minutes,
the thermometer was placed in the mouth again, and left in for a quarter