Therapeutic Hypothermia

Samuel A. Tisherman, MD', Fritz Sterz, MD~ '~niversit~ of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 2~edical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria The use of hypothermia for a variety of therapeutic purposes has a long and erratic history. Hippocrates recommended the use of topical cooling to stop bleeding. Fay used cooling of the extremities for patients with tumors in the 1930s. It wasn't until the 1950s, when the effects of hypothermia on systemic oxygen metabolism became better defined, that systemic