 [ Symptoms ] c 1900 even doctors believed one could die from drinking cold water while overheated  any basis for this belief  i work for our local historical society and recently organized a batch of death certificates c 1900 one person was listed as having died from drinking cold water while overheated  i know that this is an old time folk belief in many cultures but did not realize that doctors had also subscribed to the idea is there any physiological basis for this belief thanks for any input [ Disease ] i thought about this for quite a while and looked up information online i was not able to find much really except that there is nothing to the claim that drinking water when you are overheated will kill you i do think i might have found at least part of the origin of this myth though when you are working with horses it is generally considered bad to give very cold water to a severely overheated horse i do not know all the logic behind it but it is something that is advised against it may cause colic or some such horses can be surprisingly delicate in certain respects so that is my theory about the origin of this belief i fully admit i may be wrong i would love to get my hands on an old medical text also i did see a lot of advice among some new age healing proponents that cold water was either the worst thing for you or the best thing for you