Taking a child’s rectal temperature teaches them patience, and how to submit to authority for their own benefit. It’s not just a medical diagnostic tool, it’s also a valuable behavioral training tool.
As a child, absolutely nothing got my attention faster than being stopped from doing whatever I was doing, then being taken to a place where my pants and underwear would be removed for a complete stranger, only to have them put something into my bottom, and then having to wait until they were done with me and my “potty parts”.
That happened often until around age six. Personally after age ten, I would not have allowed it from anyone. No matter how much I enjoyed a thermometer in my butt at the doctor’s office, I absolutely detested being treated or being talked to like a baby (which nurses are so good at).
Rectal temperatures are still a thing in clinical settings for infants and toddler, and very ill adults, but they’re performed with a sleeve covered probe that registers in seconds instead of minutes.
Glass thermometers are a thing of the past. Rectal temps are very much alive and well, and I can tell you from first hand experience!