Clinical Features of Accidental Hypothermia, With Some Observations on Thyroid Function

hypothermia. This condition occurs spontaneously, usually in a cold environment, and is often associated with an acute . systemic disturbance without an apparent primary pathological lesion of the temperature-regulating centre in the brain. Old people seem especially at risk to this condition in winter-time. The diagnosis is often made on suspicion, suggested by the cold state of the body and the environmental circumstance, but it may be overlooked, with grave consequences to the patient. Duguid et cd. (1961) described a series of 22 patients with hypothermia treated in hospital over a period of three years, and analysed the clinical and pathological features. The poor prognosis was shown in some cases to be due to widespread vascular occlusive damage in the viscera. That the condition is not rare is indicated in a report (Prescott et al., 1962) in which accidental hypothermia was present in 2.5 % of acute medical admissions to one hospital in the winter. In a group of 32 patients with hypothermia whom we have seen, an attempt has been made to distinguish the causes and results of hypothermia. This paper describes the clinical features and diseases associated with the fall in temperature. In some of the patients who were known to have been euthyroid studies were made of some tests of thyroid function, as there is evidence of disturbance of radioiodine uptake in severe hypothermia (Verz?r et al., 1953).