Still, it was not until 1713 that Daniel Fahrenheit (16861736) began developing a thermometer with a fixed scale. He worked out his scale from two "fixed" points: the melting point of ice and the heat of the healthy human body. He realized that the melting point of ice was a constant temperature, whereas the freezing point of water varied. Fahrenheit put his thermometer into a mixture of ice, water, and salt (which he marked off at 0°) and, using this as a starting point, marked off melting ice at 32° and blood heat at 96°.
In 1835 it was discovered that normal blood measured 98.6°F. Sometimes Fahrenheit used spirit of wine as the liquid in the thermometer tube, but more often he used specially purified mercury. Later, the boiling point of water (2]2°F) became the upper fixed point of the thermometer.