Sir Thomas Clifford AllbuttBorn 20 Jul 1836; died 22 Feb 1925 at age 88. English physician who invented the short clinical thermometer(1866) to meet the need for a convenient method to follow the progress of a fever by temperature measurements at the bedside. Allbutt invented the pocket-size, six-inch clinical thermometer, which could take a temperature in five minutes. Before his improvement, the instruments used were a foot long, and required 20 minutes to measure a patient's temperature. Allbutt also demonstrated that angina was caused by a narrowing of the coronary artery. This understanding was an important contribution to improving procedures to treat arterial diseases.« |
