Was I One Of The First To Have My Temperature Measured By A Thermometer Reading The Radiation From My Ear?
Last week, a doctor read my body temperature, by using an electronic thermometer, that read the temperature inside my ear.
But it wasn’t the first time!
That must have been in 1968 or 1969, when I was working at ICI in Runcorn.
ICI had a problem, in that they needed to read the temperature of chemical reaction vessels.
- Temperatures could be higher, than 1,000 °C.
- Some mixtures could be highly corrosive.
- Safety needed to be as high as possible.
My colleague; John Baxendale was assigned the problem.
John came up with a solution based on black bodies and their unique black body radiation.
These two paragraphs, from the Wikipedia entry for black body, explain the principle.
A black body or is an idealised physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. The radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium with its environment is called black-body radiation. The name “black body” is given because it absorbs all colours of light. In contrast, a white body is one with a “rough surface that reflects all incident rays completely and uniformly in all directions.”
A black body in thermal equilibrium (that is, at a constant temperature) emits electromagnetic black-body radiation. The radiation is emitted according to Planck’s law, meaning that it has a spectrum that is determined by the temperature alone, not by the body’s shape or composition.
Note, that I have very mildly edited, what Wikipedia says, to the King’s English.
John had developed some clever electronics, that read the spectrum of the radiation and by decoding the spectrum, he was able to calculate the temperature.
Early on in the testing, John found that nearly all of us, have two black bodies on the side of our heads; our ears, so he could measure the temperature inside them.
A Very Bad Night’s Sleep
Last night, I must have woke several times in the night, before I finally gave up at about three-thirty and got up and started doing the puzzles on the Internet, and having some mugs of tea.
At four I went back to bed and was able to grab perhaps thirty minutes of sleep.
But my body hurt all over with a vengeance.
- There was pain in the back of my left hand.
- My toes hurt badly.
- My right hip was painful.
- All my skin felt very dry.
So at five, I decided to get up and have the cure-all remedy, which is a deep hot bath.
It certainly worked and I felt a lot better,
After the bath, I got back in bed, and although I didn’t sleep, I rose and left the house soon after nine to get my gluten-free breakfast in Leon on Moorgate, with added tea and orange juice.
As I left the house, I noticed that one of the upstairs windows was open, so I had to go back and shut it.
As I never open this window, I thought it must have been the cleaners, who’d left it open. Especially, as it had happened before, a couple of weeks ago.
But then, I realised what had happened.
- The window hadn’t been properly secured.
- Last night, a storm with a low-pressure area had gone through..
- The pressure had just been low enough to pop the window open.
- The low-pressure had then just sucked the water out of my body.
My hot bath had put the water back in, the way, that it had come out.
After breakfast and picking up a prescription from Boots, I took a bus home.
On arriving home, I needed to have a poo, but was unable to go, as I was just too constipated.
After a laxative and several drinks, that problem was cured.
Conclusion
Were all my problems today, down to the fact that the weather stole my body’s water and I didn’t drink enough to put it all back?
Can I Please Have A Good Night’s Sleep?
In all my seventy-six years, I’ve never had trouble getting to sleep. I can sleep on trains and in planes and like my father, I have no trouble going to sleep in a hard upright chair.
But everything changed two weeks ago. I would go to bed at my usual 23:00 and perhaps drop off for a quarter if an hour and then start to lie there fully awake.
Normally, I now get up at about two-thirty and do the puzzles in The Times.
Welcome to the chewed-string lifestyle.
I’ve tried herbal sleeping tables, but they don’t help!
I went to see my GP and she made no suggestions.
Can I Please Have A Good Night’s Sleep?
An Incident In My Childhood
I must have been about five or six.
All I can remember, is that she found me very red all over, grabbed me and took me upstairs where she put me in a bath.
I don’t think, she called the doctor.
I now wonder, if the incident was when a low-pressure went over and it drained the water out of my body.
Last night, there was rain in the night, and I’ve woken up with a pain in my hip. I shall have a bath soon.
Strangely, none of my three boys seemed to suffer similar incidents. So perhaps, they don’t have my strange leaky skin?
Is There A Research Dermatologist Out There?
Consider.
- I have mused about my skin before in My Strange Skin.
- I have been feeling a bit odd because of Babet.
- I have had problems with my left humerus for a few days now and my left hand has not been very co-operative.
- Yesterday, I kept dropping my bag for a start.
- Last night, I needed to go to the loo in the middle of the night. I could hardly walk, because of pain in my right lower leg.
- But I’d forgotten to put the magic Udrate on my feet, before I went to bed. It does seem to stop the water leaking out of my skin.
This picture shows my left hand.
I damaged it badly in a fall, where I took the back off on the edge of a glass door. But with some glue from the Royal London and some TLC from the practice nurse, there are no scars. Surely, it shouldn’t mend that well.
As my ancestors include both Jews and Huguenots, did all those centuries in poor living conditions ghetto-harden my skin?
I hate mysteries and I suspect some of my questions could be answered by an experienced dermatologist.
A Funny Turn On Friday
Thursday, 3rd August
I’d slept with the window open, as I often do and woke up to a very damp bedroom. I suspect, that I’d had a similar incident to the one in My Strange Skin.
I measured my INR at 0800 and it was 2.4.
I had my usual bath and breakfast in Leon on Moorgate.
Afterwards, I just went home and added to this blog.
One thing I noticed was that my left leg was going dead, as I sat on the chair typing. but then that happens regularly. It was similarly to the incident in Saved By A Beer?.
Later I had a tremendous itch in my left foot which I treated with copious amounts of the Body Shop’s Hemp Foot Protector.
Friday, 4th August
I had intended to go to the section of the city wall, that has been put on display at City Wall At Vine Street.
But as I was bumping into people and street furniture, I thought there might be something wrong, so I diverted to the A & E at the Royal London Hospital. I was also dropping my brief-case, when I held it in my left hand.
After various tests, including a CT-Scan, I finally left at 21:30, after they’d found nothing serious.
They measured by INR and they said it was 1.9. As I’d not eaten or drunk, large amounts of food and drink, that would drop my INR, how did it drop by 0.5 in 24 hours?
I went home on the Overground and a bus.
Saturday, 5th August
I wasn’t feeling unwell at all.
I was in all day watching the sport.
I was drinking a lot. Perhaps it was 4-5 mugs of tea and a 500 ml. bottle of Adnams 0.5 % Ghost Ship.
Sunday, 6th August
Very much like Saturday, except that I had lunch with my granddaughter.
I had two bottles of 0.5 % beer.
Monday, 7th August
I measured my INR at 0800 and it was 2.8.
Saved By A Beer?
Last night, I was feeling distinctly unwell. My left foot was itching like mad and I couldn’t walk without hanging onto the furniture.
I decided to take serious action.
- I took off my left sock and plastered it with Body Shop Hemp foot protector, which usually stops the itch.
- I also drunk a bottle of 0.5 %-alcohol Ghost Ship from Adnams.
- The beer went down quickly and cured the unsteadiness.
Twenty minutes later my foot was back to normal.
I really should get hold of this unsteadiness, as I’m sure it’s caused a couple of falls and visits to hospital.
It should be noted that yesterday, I’d been drinking tea all day, as I often do.
Is it just that I get dehydrated very quickly?
Are Boots Marching In The Wrong Direction?
My family has used Boots at the Angel since about 1900.
But have they ever been so disorganised?
Yesterday, I went to pick up some Warfarin, which I have taking for a dozen years.
It must be one of the most common and cheapest drugs they dispense.
I needed both 1 mg and 3 mg tablets.
But they didn’t have any 1 mg tablets.
The pharmacist explained that Boots didn’t have any.
Surely, this is a bit like Sainsbury’s running out of baked beans?
Coping With My Cough
Over the last few weeks, I’ve developed a terrible hacking cough.
I used to get these as a child and regularly had months off school.
I can remember that our GP; Dr. Egerton White was worried and visited me regularly.
But I can’t remember having one since and certainly, I never had one in the forty years I lived with C.
About ten days ago, I noticed that a Marks and Spencer chilli con carne seem to calm my coughing down.
So I consulted Doctor Google and found several pages like this page on Rochester Regional Health, which is entitled Spicy Foods and Your Health.
Under a heading of Spicy Foods Help with Cold Symptoms: FACT, this is said.
Spicy foods contain capsaicin, the bioactive ingredient in chili peppers. Capsaicin breaks up mucus, which can help effectively relieve coughing and a sore throat. However, capsaicin can increase the production of mucus, causing a more prevalent runny nose.
My nose is running, but not excessively so. But I am generating a lot of mucus, just as my father always did.
His remedy was a mixture of strong mints and catarrh tablets.
I have started eating my Leon breakfast, that I eat most days with a pot of their chilli sauce.
It does seem to calm my cough throughout most of the day.
The Cough Goes On!
The cough that started last week has still not left me and it’s like the ones I used to get as a child, that went on for months and months. At least twice, I had six months and more off school. Sadly, those sections of my medical records got lost after University, so we can’t find out what the good doctor Egerton White thought!
The Anonymous Widower 