NAME: Normal Body Temperature, Gender, and Heart Rate 
TYPE: Random sample
SIZE: 130 observations, 3 variables 

DESCRIPTIVE ABSTRACT:
This article takes data from a paper in the _Journal of the American
Medical Association_ that examined whether the true mean body
temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  Because the dataset suggests
that the true mean is approximately 98.2, it helps students to grasp
concepts about true means, confidence intervals, and t-statistics.
Students can use a t-test to test for sex differences in body
temperature and regression to investigate the relationship between
temperature and heart rate.

SOURCE:
These data are derived from a dataset presented in Mackowiak, P. A.,
Wasserman, S. S., and Levine, M. M.  (1992), "A Critical Appraisal of
98.6 Degrees F, the Upper Limit of the Normal Body Temperature, and
Other Legacies of Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich," _Journal of the
American Medical Association_, 268, 1578-1580.  Data were constructed
to match as closely as possible the histograms and summary statistics
presented in that article.

VARIABLE DESCRIPTIONS:
Columns
 1 -  5  Body temperature (degrees Fahrenheit)
 9       Gender (1 = male, 2 = female)
14 - 15  Heart rate (beats per minute)

Values are delimited by blanks.  There are no missing values.

PEDAGOGICAL NOTES:
These data can be used to address the following questions:

1.  Is the distribution of body temperatures normal?
2.  Is the true population mean really 98.6 degrees F?
3.  At what temperature should we consider someone's temperature to be
    "abnormal"?
4.  Is there a significant difference between males and females in
    normal temperature?
5.  Is there a relationship between body temperature and heart rate?
6.  Were the original temperatures taken on a Centigrade or Fahrenheit
    scale?

Additional information about these data can be found in the "Datasets
and Stories" article "What's Normal? -- Temperature, Gender, and Heart
Rate" in the _Journal of Statistics Education_ (Shoemaker 1996).  

SUBMITTED BY:
Allen L. Shoemaker
Psychology Department 
Calvin College
3201 Burton St. S.E.
Grand Rapids, MI  49546
shoe@calvin.edu