Out Cold: A Chilling Descent Into the Macabre, Controversial, Lifesaving History of Hypothermia

With this debut, science writer Jaekl traces humanity’s confrontation with death by freezing, as well as the intriguing non-lethal effects of hypothermia. He recounts the long history of intentionally induced hypothermia; for instance, ancient peoples used cold compresses therapeutically to relieve symptoms of disease, although the use of cold in medicine was hampered by the difficulty of producing low temperatures on demand, as well as controlling the effects. Early cold therapies for “moral and mental disorders” amounted to torture, and true scientific applications did not arrive until the 20th century, Jaekl explains. The academic field of cryobiology explores what happens to animals at progressively lower internal body temperatures; it has yielded benefits for surgery, resuscitation from hypothermia, and possibly for space travel through pseudo-hibernation and lowered metabolic state. Efforts to freeze the body (in effect, to stop time) for future reanimation have thus far resulted only in modern-day horror stories, Jaekl writes; however, he sees theoretical promise in the idea of transferring the brain’s neural connection patterns to an artificial intelligence. Jaekl delights in the juicy details of his subject—the intriguing, the improbable, the macabre—and delivers a multifaceted exploration of the effects of cold on the human body and mind.