Electronic thermometer with fixed response time

An electronic thermometer, comprising:

• a temperature sensing element;
• a programmable microcomputer electronically connected to receive temperature data from said sensing element and electronically connected to enable it to provide an output to a display;
• and
• a control program for computing the temperature of a body in thermal contact with said sensing element from said temperature data, said program including instructions which cause said microcomputer to store temperature data at selected time intervals during a fixed duration sampling period, to select a computation algorithm from a high ambient temperature algorithm, a normal ambient temperature algorithm, and a low ambient temperature algorithm according to the values of said stored temperature data, to compute said body temperature using said selected algorithm and said stored temperature data, and to provide an output to said display representing said computed body temperature.