# In 1799 an Italian came to Finland with a thermometer. He wanted to measure us.

- Series: [Saunantakaa](https://miu.fm/saunantakaa.md)
- Published: 2026-10-03
- Page: https://miu.fm/saunantakaa/in-1799-an-italian-came-to-finland-with-a-thermometer-he

## Story

In 1799 an Italian came to Finland with a thermometer. He wanted to measure us.

Giuseppe Acerbi watched Finns sit in seventy-five degrees, whip themselves with birch, then walk out naked and roll in the snow at thirty below. His book came out in London in 1802, with the word sauna in it almost eighty years before the English dictionary.

He came to measure Finns. Sauna measured him.

What would you show a visitor in your sauna?

Source: Giuseppe Acerbi, Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland (London 1802), vol. I pp. 297-299 and 337-339.

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