In: Isis, 116 (2025), Nr. 1. pp. 126-135. ISSN 0021-1753 (Druck-Ausg.); 1545-6994 (Online-Ausg.)

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Abstract

This article traces the global biography of the idea that, if the thermometer read 38°C, ‘one need not be afraid’ to speak of a fever, as one early advocate of thermometry put it in 1873. The article revisits how the idea of fever as quantifiable temperature and the related numerical standards first came into being in mid-nineteenth century Leipzig and Berlin. Subsequently, it traces these numerical thresholds’ dissemination across the globe over the 1870s and 1880s and endeavors to explain their ready acceptance, in places as diverse as Japan or Mexico. It argues that thermometry, though initially quite controversial, could become unquestioned within decades not so much on account of its medical utility but a range of other reasons: its suitability for standardization, association with technological modernity, the period’s gendered epistemic order and the very fact of its being a number – the period’s broader penchant for quantifying objectification.