Fahrenheit literally meant to base the scale with 100 being human body temp.
It was later rescaled by Cavendish to put the freezing point of water at exactly 32 and boiling point at exactly 212, giving a nicely-divisible 180-degree separation between freezing and boiling. That shift is why body temperature is 98.6.
I like this version better than “he had a fever when he measured 100 degrees” so I will choose to believe it without further research.
I hope you are correct.
The Report of the Committee Appointed by the Royal Society to Consider of the Best Method of Adjusting the Fixed Points of Thermometers; And of the Precautions Necessary to Be Used in Making Experiments with Those Instruments
Seems fancy and legit, I see no reason to actually read it and confirm the info.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t actually Fahrenheit’s intention, more a happy accident. Also if your body temp is 100°F then you’re running a mild/moderate fever.
The scale was adjusted later to make freezing and boiling points land on exact numbers with an easily-divisible 180-dregrees between them (180 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, 36, 45, 60, and 90).
https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1098_rstl_1777_0038
