1815-1877

German physician who was the first to describe fever as a symptom of disease and not a disease itself. He made more than one million measurements of individual body temperatures to determine that the "normal" healthy temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Wunderlich urged other doctors to carefully monitor fevers in order to chart the course of a patients' disease. But until the invention of the portable clinical thermometer in 1877, most physicians had no way of carrying out Wunderlich's recommendations.