Page "Thermometer" Paragraph 12

However, each inventor and each thermometer was unique — there was no standard scale.

In 1665 Christiaan Huygens suggested using the melting and boiling points of water as standards, and in 1694 Carlo Renaldini proposed using them as fixed points on a universal scale.

In 1701 Isaac Newton proposed a scale of 12 degrees between the melting point of ice and body temperature.

Finally in 1724 Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit produced a temperature scale which now ( slightly adjusted ) bears his name.

He could do this because he manufactured thermometers, using mercury ( which has a high coefficient of expansion ) for the first time and the quality of his production could provide a finer scale and greater reproducibility, leading to its general adoption.

though the scale which now bears his name has them the other way around.