Fahrenheit clinical thermometer, Currie's type, 1800-1810, cased

Scottish physician James Currie (1756-1805) pioneered the clinical thermometer. This early example is one of a type he devised. The clinical thermometer differs from an ordinary thermometer. It measures only over a limited temperature range relating to body temperatures.

Such instruments were used in medicine for some time before 1850. However, it was only then they began being used as a precise means to diagnose disease. They were also used to predict a disease’s course through recognising the different temperature patterns of specific diseases. This example has a Fahrenheit scale. It is thought to have been made in England.