CLINICAL CALORIMETRY. XXX. METABOLISM IN ERYSIPELAS

Abstract

In the study of fever in the human subject it is difficult to select a disease which lends itself well to experimental conditions. Patients with certain fevers, such as pneumonia, are so seriously ill that one hesitates to make even the simplest observations. Some of the other fevers are so mild that they do not give one a chance to study high temperatures. In others, the possibility of contagion must be considered and it is hardly justifiable, for instance, to study measles or scarlet fever in a room adjoining a general ward. Typhoid fever, which is in many respects ideal for experimental work in the respiration calorimeter, was thoroughly investigated by Shaffer and Coleman¹ and later by the staff of the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology.² It seemed desirable to determine whether other acute infectious diseases present phenomena similar to those of enteric fever. For this purpose erysipelas was chosen.