This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Wendy A. Weiger
Harvard Medical School Boston, Mass

JAMA. 1993;269(10):1249.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The article by Mackowiak et al¹ represents an important step toward removing the mythical status of 37.0°C (98.6°F) as a marker that distinguishes health from disease. However, I believe that the meaningful interpretation of oral temperature readings requires greater subtlety than the article suggests.

I have a long-standing personal interest in this subject. As an MD/PhD student who is particularly prone to acute and chronic viral and bacterial infections, I have maintained daily temperature records during health and illness in an attempt to establish a practical standard for my own personal use. When I am relatively healthy, my temperature ranges from a low of about 36.3°C (97.4°F) to a high of about 36.8°C (98.4°F) in the afternoon or evening. These values are only slightly below the mean values reported by Mackowiak et al and are well within the reported range; my diurnal oscillation in temperature also . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), and Margaret A. Winker, MD, Senior Editor.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?