1990s glass thermometers in the US

In the 1990s, I bought a rectal thermometer in the US, I believe the brand was Geratherm. It looked just like the multi-use rectal/oral thermometers found in Europe, and was sold in a case with a red stopper.

I saw an oral version of the same and I could swear it was exactly the same except it was marketed as oral and the stopper was blue.

I suspect they imported a European design and, for the US market, sold exactly the same device as separate oral and rectal products.

Geratherm are identical only colors differ, red for rectal, blue or green for oral. I have a green one I have only used for rectal.

I have a red one.

Mine is a Empire, glass mercury thermometer with the pear/ tear drop shaped bulb ranging from 94F-110F. And it says RECTAL on it.

@overrainbow Mercury in the 1990s?!!!

The thermometer I was referring to is from an earlier decade when mercury thermometers were common prior to the concerns about mercury.

I bought my last mercury rectal thermometer in the late 90’s. By that time, they all were designed with slender bulbs. It might sound funny, but I believe that the PC crowd was beginning to influence healthcare, and they determined that rectal temp taking was child abuse.

@JJM I've not heard any “PC crowd” clamoring this. I however have read descriptions of “pathological nursing” where parents or caregivers, often the mother, use invasive, intimate procedures that are not medically or hygienically justified (e.g. washing the genitals of a child old enough to take car of this by himself or herself, taking rectal temperatures for no real reason, etc.); which is a form of abuse.