How to determine omitted units in a publication I have found a 1954 paper in J. Am. Chem. Soc. which gives various temperatures in degrees but does not specify units.

A snippet of the introduction is:



  Titanium reacts appreciably with fluorine above 150°…


If I were feeling charitable, I might excuse the "units are for wimps" attitude as reflecting a commonly understood standard for that publication at that time. Perhaps my searching was poor, but I couldn't find an ACS standard or style guide for the 1950s era. 

Given the location and time, I would guess that the temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit, but I can't be sure they're not Celsius. Is there any reasonable way to determine which units the authors were actually using?

I don't have access to the full paper, just the first page at the link below.   

Haendler et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1954, 76 (8), pp 2177–2178
DOI 10.1021/ja01637a038
These are degrees Celsius.

To prove that, you could search JACS for the publications of the same year/issue for the temperature-related physical constants such as melting point:


Douglas et al. [1] lists m.p. of $\ce{LiF}$ as $\pu{848 ± 1 ^\circ}$, whereas currently Wikipedia lists $\pu{845 °C}$.  
Yankwich et al. [2] lists m.p. of malonic acid as $\pu{140 ^\circ}$ whereas currently Wikipedia lists $\pu{135 to 137 °C}$.


You may find further examples, but even at this point it's fairly obvious what those temperature units are. 

References


Douglas, T. B.; Dever, J. L. Lithium Fluoride: Heat Content from 0 to 900°, the Melting Point and Heat of Fusion. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1954, 76 (19), 4826–4829. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja01648a016.  
Yankwich, P. E.; Promislow, A. L. Intramolecular Carbon Isotope Effect in the Decarboxylation of Liquid Malonic Acid Near the Melting Point. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1954, 76 (18), 4648–4651. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja01647a050.