ok kids, I looked it up, so put the thermometers away.  98.6 isn't really
normal, it is actually too high, and wide variations are perfectly common.

although I suppose one could argue about the difference between modern
digital (electronic) readings and paleo digital (finger) readings.

I would like to recommend the following WWW site to all of you.  although
it is not intended for the general public, if you have educated yourself a
bit it is a wonderful resource.  the section on Food for Thought (not in
the paper magazine) is quite interesting.

   Linkname: Science News Online - The Weekly Newsmagazine of Science
        URL: http://www.sciencenews.org/

the article I was looking for (too old for the WWW archives) was published
in Science News, September 26, 1992, Vol 142, No. 13, page 196.

this magazine is a digest of current published research.  in this case,
the original research was performed by Philip A. Mackowiak at the
University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and published
in the September 23/30, 1992, issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA).

now to digest the digest.

the seminal paper on body temperature was published in 1868 by Carl
Wunderlich.  in that paper the results of more than 1 million measurements
were averaged to reach the result of 37 Centigrade (98.6 Fahrenheit), and
the variation of body temperature between healthy individuals was noted.
this paper is still cited because there have been few other studies into
this matter; however, the thermometers of the day took 15 to 20 minutes to
obtain the temperature, and had to be read in place, in the armpit.
underarm readings are not normally used today because they are considered
unreliable.

the new study was based on 700 oral measurements of 148 volunteers ranging
in age from 18 to 40.  measurements were taken digitally, up to 4 times
daily for 3 consecutive days and reaches the following conclusions:

1)  98.6 Fahrenheit was *not* the overall mean temperature,
    the mean temperature of any of the time periods studied,
    the median temperature, or
    the single most frequent temperature recorded;
    in fact it accounted for just 8 percent of the readings taken.

2)  the average body temperature reading is 98.2 Fahrenheit

3)  the variation over the course of a day is as much as 1.09 Fahrenheit

4)  the variation between individuals is as much as 4.8 Fahrenheit

5)  *maximum* normal temperatures varied from a low of 98.9 Fahrenheit
    at 6 a.m. to a high of 99.9 Fahrenheit at 4 p.m.

6)  the body temperature of women tended to be about 0.3 Fahrenheit warmer
    than men

7)  the body temperature of blacks tended to be about 0.1 Fahrenheit
    warmer than whites

8)  the heart rate tended to show an increase of 2.44 beats per minute
    with each 1 Fahrenheit increase in body temperature

 Douglas in Pittsburgh            to us will be years and long days
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