When you think "thermometer" you often imagine this small transparent glass tube containing an often red or silver liquid; Well this thermometer that you imagine is a Thermometer with mercury. Real professional temperature taking tool. He quickly took up residence in our private bathrooms to take the temperature of family members and control fever. This Mechanical thermometer has long been used as a medical thermometer for patient temperature taking before being completely removed from the market. How does the Thermometer with mercury ? Why did he disappear from medicine firms? What Mercury -free thermometers have become good alternatives? Our temperature -taking experts come back with you on all these questions to help you see more clearly.
The thermometer with Mercury 🧪
At first glance, you might think you need Choose between the thermometer with mercury and the mercury thermometer, like the red pill and the blue pill in the Matrix film. What neni! Let us tell you more about the mercury thermometer. Especially from its abolition of the market for body temperature taking ...
The history of the thermometer with Mercury
THE Thermometer with mercury was created in 1724 by the German physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit. As a tip, it has a glass bulb. It is itself surmounted by a long tube of graduated glass in Fahrenheit degree or in Celsius degree a few years later (depending on the country). The bulb then contains mercury, a liquid metal at room temperature whose thermal expansion coefficient can be high. When the mercury heats up thanks to the temperature of a body, it expands quickly and its volume increases in the glass tube, until giving a precise measurement via graduation.
The dangers of the thermometer with Mercury
Mercury is part of what is called, with calcium and lead, for example, heavy metals. These are highly toxic metals that can cause human health lesions. Beyond the dangers of local traumatic lesions (perforations ...) and skin wounds that could cause the bulb when taking temperature. The biggest indirect risks are done through mercury vapors.
If A thermometer with Mercury is broken, the vapors are immediately inhaled by the occupants of the play, which could especially happen in a hospital environment. It was then imperative to redouble vigilance in the rooms in which children evolve (the most fragile to this neurotoxic) and in the patients of the patients, that is to say in closed, not very airy, heated environments.
The gradual removal of the thermometer with mercury
In France, the sale of Thermometers with Mercury therefore ended thanks to the decree of December 24, 1998 and was quickly reinforced by a ministerial circular also prohibiting the use of these Mercury medical thermometers In French hospitals in September 1999. Our European neighbors have prohibited the sale of thermometers in Mercury on July 10, 2007.
Mercury -free thermometers 📲
Of course, today there are different alternatives to these Medical thermometers ; Sub-brac or rectal thermometers, the ideal atrial contactless thermometer for the temperature gain of babies and other infrared temperature sensors whose measurement beaches are perfect for body temperature intake.
The axillary thermometer
The most obvious with its stainless steel tip and which strongly resembles our thermometer with Mercury, it is the one called The axillary thermometer To take the temperature by rectal route or under the armpit. Its digital screen directly displays the precise temperature thanks to the internal temperature socket probe.
The infrared thermometer
Front thermometer Or atrial thermometer, these contactless medical electronic thermometers are reliable and precise measures. The infrared/laser thermometers technology offers you comfort and ease of use. No need to clean it, to change the tip, to insert the probe, etc. They also allow an ambient temperature measurement. In addition, they are particularly fast and display the exact temperature in a few seconds on their LCD screen.
The different types of thermometers
There are therefore many alternatives to the thermometer with Mercury. However, if your needs go beyond what these mercury thermometers can bring you, do not hesitate to continue your research on The different types of thermometers existing:
- The electronic/digital thermometer
- The mechanical thermometer
- The IR/Laser thermometer
- The Gallium thermometer
- The thermometer with probe
- The Galileo thermometer
- The multifunction thermometer
- VS anemometer thermometer
- Recording VS Thermometer
- VS hygrometer thermometer
- VS phmeter thermometer
- Thermocouple VS thermometer
- VS thermostat thermometer
