History of the Thermometer

  • Galileo Thermoscope

    In 1593, Galileo Galilei invented a thermoscope, which for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured. It was a container filled with bulbs of varying mass, each with a temperature marking. As the temperature canged so with the waters buoyency, and some of the bulbs would sink and others would float. The lowest bulb indicated what temperature it is
  • Santorio Thermoscope

    Santorio Sontorio became the first to put a numerical scale on his thermoscope. It was probably the first thermometer to be used for medical use as it was ment to be put in a patient's mouth for temperature taking.
  • Ferdinand II thermometer

    In 1654 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, inveted the first liquid-in-a-glass thermometer. he use alcohol as his liqiud, but his thermometer was still inaccurate and didn't use a standardized scale.
  • Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

    Daniel Fahrenheit was the inventor of the mondern day thermometer filled with mercury, and in 1724 he introduced the Fahrenheit scale which could be used to record changes in temperature accurately. On this scale water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. Fahrenheit based his scale on the human body temperature which was 100 degrees but has be adjusted to being 98.6 degrees.
  • Medical Thermometers (Mouth)

    The first doctors to routinely take the temperature of their patients were: Hermann Boerhaave, Gerard L.B. Van Swieten founder of the Viennese School of Medicine, and Anton De Haen. These doctors found temperature correlated to the progress of an illness, however, few of their contemporaries agreed, and the thermometer was not widely used.
  • Celsius Scale

    In 1742, the Celsius scale was invented by Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius. The Celsius scale has 100 degrees between the freezing point and boiling point of pure water at sea level air pressure those being 0 degrees and 100 degrees.This scale was not adopted until 1948 by an international conference on weights and measures.
  • Kelvin Scale

    The Kelvin Scale measures the ultimate extremes of hot and cold. Kelvin developed the idea of absolute temperature, and developed the dynamical theory of heat.The Kelvin scale uses the same units as the Celcius scale, but it starts at abosolute zero, the temperature at which everything including air freezes solid.
  • First Practical Medical Thermometer

    Sir Thomas Allbutt invented the first practical medical thermometer used for taking the temperature of a person in 1867. It was portable, 6 inches in length and able to record a patient's temperature in 5  min.
  • Medical Thermometers (Ear)

    Theodore Hannes Benzinger invented the ear thermometer. David Phillips invented the infra-red ear thermometer in 1984. Dr. Jacob Fraden invented the world's best-selling ear thermometer