How was it determined that the normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit?
Erroneously! Though this precise-sounding number has been known to generations of parents and doctors, it is wrong, says Temple University’s John Allen Paulos in “A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers.” Recent tests involving millions of measurements found a figure of 98.2 F. But don’t blame German physician Dr. Carl Wunderlich (1815-1877), who did the original statistical study of normal body temperature of thousands of people in Europe. The Dr. actually found a range of temperatures, says Paulos, then averaged them and sensibly rounded to the nearest degree: 37 Celsius! When this was converted to Fahrenheit, however, the rounding of the two-digit figure was forgotten and 98.6 was taken to be accurate to the nearest tenth of a degree. “Had the original interval from 36.5-37.5 Celsius been translated, the equivalent Fahrenheit temperatures would have ranged from 97.7 to 99.5.” As one “Fever Phobia” Web site puts it, “A curse on the person who invented the arrow pointing to 98.6 on many
