We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Out Cold

Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9781541756755

Price: £22

ON SALE: 15th July 2021

Genre: Mathematics & Science

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

The word “hypothermia” has Greek origins meaning “under heat.” Its symptoms initially involve shivering, poorly coordinated, laborious movement, and disorientation. At extremes, heart rate decreases significantly while retrograde amnesia and confusion set in. After further decline, victims can begin to make irrational decisions and talk incoherently. For reasons poorly understood, they’ve even been known to take off their clothes and seek confined spaces before death reigns. Yet, hypothermia has another side–it can be therapeutic.

In Out Cold, science writer Phil Jaekl tells the history of therapeutic hypothermia, from Ancient Egypt, where cold was used to treat schizophrenia, to Nazi science experiments, science-fiction-inspired preservation attempts, and a whole host of modern-day researchers harnessing cold in surprising ways to save lives.

We understand hypothermia now better than ever before, and we have numerous new life-saving cooling techniques at our disposal, yet a macabre stigma still hangs over the field. This book will delve into a dark history from which science is now coming out on top.

What's Inside

Read More Read Less