DIABETIC RENAL DISEASE

range for the individual patient is significant rather than a singleabsolutevalue. It is interestingalso in this regard to read a note on the rectal temperatureof infants which was supplied in answer to a question.' Here again it is pointed out that there is probably no "normal" rectal temperaturefor infants aged one to twelve months, but rather that there are variable temperatureswithin the boundariesof normal. This is particularly so becauseof the instability of the heat-regulatingsystem in the newborn. It is stated that if the bulb of the thermometeris insertedfive centimetresinto the rectum a higher temperature will be registered than if it is inserted only three centimetres. Factors particularly causing variation are bodily movements, ingestion of food and the external temperature. A lowering may result from lessenedprotection of the body or coolness of the environment, and a rise from bodily exercise, restlessnessand crying. Some children have a constant rectal temperature somewhat higher than the normal average; these infants, it is said, are often membersof neurotic families. The writer of the note concludeswith the remark that oscillations in rectal temperatureare so universal that they should be considered normal manifestations based on a somewhat unstableheat-regulatingmechanismin young infants. He does not quote any figures, even those that might be regarded as the very broadest range of normality. It seemsto be important to get right away from the idea of absolute values for the temperaturesof either infants or adults, and to insist that the thermometerreading take its place alongsideall the other information that we have about a particular individual in health and'in illness.