Survival of Hypothermia by Men Immersed in the Ocean

The survival time of men immersed in cold water has not as yet been adequately determined, although it is a matter of practical importance when disasters occur at sea. The shortening of survival time in water is apparently related to the acceleration of body heat loss in water as compared with air, but the amount of hypothermia that can be tolerated and the reasons for greater heat loss in water have not been clearly defined. The usual explanation, that water conducts heat from the body twenty to twenty-five times more rapidly than air, is inadequate, as will be shown later. The immersion experiments of Lefèvre¹were, on the whole, of too short duration to establish tolerance limits. Refrigeration of patients (Fay,²Talbott,³Dill and Forbes⁴) showed that man's body temperature may be reduced by several degrees without endangering life, but the environments employed during induction were