Fever is not 100F. A fever is defined as 100.4F. Why 100.4 when 100 is a much easier to remember and handle number? Because fever is defined in humans as 38C, and that converts to 100.4F.

[–] BeardedSingleMalt@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's been a while but I think they tried to establish 100F as the average human body temperature. But after they established that baseline turns out they were off by 1.4 degrees and couldn't change it.

[–] gentooer@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

People's body temperature used to be higher a century ago, but I think it was less then 1°C.

EDIT: Apparently since the early 1800s, men's body temperature changed about 0.59°C and women's about 0.32°C.

[–] sadbehr 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's really interesting. Does anyone know why?

[–] gentooer@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

I believe there's a theory that the average person had at least one source of inflammation in their body.

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