For most of human history, the treatment of severe cold exposure was empirical and intuitive: get the person warm, whatever that required.

The specific understanding of what happens inside the body during hypothermia, and why warming sometimes works when it seems like it shouldn’t, is largely a development of the twentieth century.

World War II played a significant role in advancing medical knowledge of hypothermia.

The naval campaigns of the war involved sailors surviving in cold ocean water after their ships were sunk, and the military medicine of the period became acutely interested in how long a person could survive in cold water and what could be done to improve survival rates.

The German experiments on hypothermia in concentration camps — horrific crimes against humanity — generated data that was subsequently used in the development of medical protocols, a fact that has generated significant ethical debate about the use of data obtained through atrocity.