Thermography of Smoking

Abstract
Thermography brings skin temperature recording into the space age. Instead of “loading” the skin by using contact thermometers, such as thermocouples, and obtaining inaccurate temperature readings or a record of an isolated area, thermographs furnish thermal maps of large areas of skin surface without touching the subject. These maps, or thermograms, are made with various types of apparatus. In one thermograph, thousands of point-to-point temperature readings are detected by a sensitive thermistor bolometer in a two-to four-minute scan and registered on photographic film. In another device, a photoconductive sensor assembles the temperature readings rapidly into a pattern on a television screen. The image can be viewed in seconds and can also be photographed for later analysis. About six thermographs are on the market or are being developed. They offer pictorial representations of skin temperatures whose interpretation opens entirely new fields for the study of abnormalities of peripheral vascular circulation.

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