From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO)
Subject: Re: Well known scientifc facts
Organization: HFS, Inc., McLean VA
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 01:55:16 GMT

In article <1a4u3aINNf10@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Sep26.034447.20347@hfsi.uucp>, ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>>In article <lc62fkINNajq@news.bbn.com> ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) writes:
>>>In article <1992Sep24.122743.10247@hfsi.uucp> ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>>>>Read an article in the Post yesterday which talked about a study
>>>>showing that the average human temperature is 98.2 degrees, not
>>>>98.6 degrees as everyone had thought.  The only explanation they
>>>>had was the thermometers have gotten more accurate lately...sounds
>>>>kind of far reaching to me seeing we've had thermometers capable
>>>>of registering .1 degree variation for quite a long time now.
>>>
>>>Doctors or anyone else dealing regularly with health care have _always_
>>>known that 98.6 is only the crudest rule of thumb for average human body
>>
>>Sorry, *average* body temperature is a single number.
>
>Well, which average?  Average for someone sitting in a doctor's office? 

Further reasearch showed that Mackowiak and his colleagues took a
group of men and women between the ages of 18 and 40, and recorded
their temperatures several times per day for a duration of 2.5
days per person.  This is in contrast to Dr. Wunderlich, the
original researcher, who recorded temperatures of more than 25000
patients at the University of Liepzigh over a period of 16 years.
He published his results in 1868.

>
>Why worse than useless?  Because an individual's temperature's going to vary
>cyclicly over time, and individuals won't have identical time/temperature
>profiles.  Encouraging the ridiculous belief that there's a single temperature
>that everyone's supposed to have all the time is just plain stupid.

We know that an individual's temperature vary's.  This has been common
knowledge for a long time.  I disagree, however, that it is useless
information to find out what the average and standard deviation of a
human's termperature is.

>>Sorry again, according to the article, 98.6 was taken as the
>>*average* body temperature in medical texts.
>
>Fine.  I thought this thread started by questioning science based on this
>study.  Please show me what correlation there is between practicing physicians
>and science.

I believe it is the ultimate irony that some people here think
that medicine and science have no correlation.  Indeed, let me ask
you a question then...which non-medical scientific (by your
definition) journal would one find such information as the average
human termperature?  Do scientists perhaps have their own separate
parallel storehouses of knowledge that doctors are not privy to? 

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

-- 
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