THERMOLOGY: THE HISTORY
The aura of modern thermology's cutting-edge technology obscures its venerated origins as one of Hippocrates' cardinal signs of pathology: Calor (heat). 400 BCE in The Book of Prognostics, Hippocrates of Cos wrote; "In whatever part of the body excess of heat or cold is felt, the disease is there to be discovered"
(1). The ancient Greek physicians of the Golden Age were known to employ a primitive form of thermal imaging as they would apply thin mud slurry onto areas of their patient's bodies to observe the patterns and rates of drying. Modern thermology has been refined into a proper, albeit young science with a vast and rich history. The first electronic infrared sensors were developed in the 1950's for military intelligence and then were provided for medicine
(2). The early thermologists of the modern era were accomplished and comprehensive experts in their respective fields of breast oncology, vascular medicine or neurology. These pioneering thermologists worked in specialty centers with a multi-modality approach to diagnostic medicine. They discovered that the thermograms of women with breast cancer characteristically presented aberrant high-energy blood vessels overlying the tumor
(3). However, it was not until more recent times that it was established the hot patterns of breast cancer were the result of dis-regulated hyperemia of core body-temperature blood flowing to a relatively superficial area in the female breast (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).
