Topics of The Times; Global Cooling?
Published: September 25, 1992
Men are cooler than women, and everyone is cooler than the little red "normal" line on the thermometer, according to a paper published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The commonly accepted notion that 98.6 degrees is normal came from Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich, a German physician who recorded the temperatures of 25,000 Leipzigers in the mid-1800's. But now three doctors in Baltimore have reached the unsettling conclusion that the right number is 98.2 -- a little lower for men and a little higher for women.
The challenge to 98.6 is based on a study of 148 healthy Baltimoreans. There is no apparent explanation for the difference, and indeed no explanation of why the mercury has come to rest at 98.6 all these years if it should have been stopping at 98.2.
It's enough to make five billion earthlings wonder if they can believe in anything at all.