Håkan Håkansson

A disposable new electronic temperature probe for skin temperature measurements in the newborn infant nursery

For many years temperature of new-born babies has been measured rectally with a mercury thermometer. In the 197Os, new ways of controlling temperature have been developed, e.g. servo-controlled incubators using abdominal skin thermometer electrodes. In addition to this, measurements performed by Bottiger (1971) and Buntain et al. (1977) show that the rectal temperature is by no means always the best measure of the body temperature. Furthermore, in our neonatal unit, we have found by continuous simultaneous measurements of arterial blood pressure, arterial PaO,, and rectal temperature that there is often a rise in blood pressure and a lowering of PaO, when measuring rectal temperature, especially in very pre-term babies. There is also a significant risk of damaging the rectal mucosa, when the mercury thermometer is inserted. In the present investigation we compared a new electronic thermometer and a conventional mercury thermometer used rectally. The aim of the study was to evaluate the applicability of this new method for temperature measurement in new-born infants.

Alchemy of the Ancient Goths: Johannes Bureus' Search for the Lost Wisdom of Scandinavia

The Swedish polymath Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), Royal Librarian and close friend of King Gustavus Adolphus, is primarily known as an exponent of early modern “Gothicism,” i.e., the idea that the ancient Goths of Scandinavia were the first rulers of Europe and Sweden the true origin of Western culture. But Bureus was also an avid reader of alchemical literature, as well as a practising alchemist. Influenced by the Neoplatonic revival of the Renaissance, he viewed alchemy as part of a prisca theologia stemming from the ancient Goths, arguing that the Scandinavian runes constituted a “Gothic Cabala,” in which the secrets of all sciences—including alchemy—had been hidden for posterity. Drawing on Bureus’ notes, glosses and excerpts from textual sources, this article considers the role attributed to alchemy in his quest for this lost wisdom of the Goths.

Tycho the Prophet: History, Astrology and the Apocalypse in Early Modern Science

To most of the people who witnessed the spectacle, it seemed as if the order of nature had suddenly begun to crumble, as if the firmament were quaking and threatening to fall apart. An ‘inexplicable’ and ‘divine wonder’, exclaimed the astounded Tycho Brahe, a ‘rarer and greater miracle than anything that has occurred since the creation of the world’. Indeed, in the eyes of the Danish astronomer the remarkable sight was nothing but a presager of God, heralding the most dire times mankind had yet experienced: ‘wars, revolts, the capturing and death of sovereigns, the fall of empires and cities, tyranny, violence, felonies, fires, murders, plundering … sorrows, diseases, deaths, and all deplorable and horrible things’.1