To the Editor:—
Apropos of your recent editorial entitled "Cooling in Shock" (The Journal, February 6, p. 432) it may be of interest to quote from two authors of olden times. Edmund Goodwyn, M.D., writing in 1788 on The Connexion of Life with Respiration, said:... it appears on the other hand, from the result of many attempts to recover the hybernating animals from their torpor, that when the circulation of the blood has ceased, and the temperature of the body is reduced near the freezing point, if heat be applied either very suddenly, or in a very high degree, the principle of life is soon destroyed; whereas, if it be applied gradually, and in a very low degree, to the same animals in the same circumstances, the principle of life is often excited to action, and the functions are soon restored....To favour the recovery then most effectually [from the