Deaths from hypothermia in Russian regions continued through the first and second world wars, especially in the Battle of Stalingrad.Civilian examples of deaths caused by hypothermia occurred during the sinkings of the RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania, and more recently of the MS Estonia.Antarctic explorers developed hypothermia; Ernest Shackleton and his team measured body temperatures "below 94.2°, which spells death at home", though this probably referred to oral temperatures rather than core temperature and corresponded to mild hypothermia. One of Scotts team, Atkinson, became confused through hypothermia.Nazi human experimentation during World War II amounting to medical torture included hypothermia experiments, which killed many victims. There were 360 to 400 experiments and 280 to 300 subjects, indicating some had more than one experiment performed on them. Various methods of rewarming were attempted: "One assistant later testified that some victims were thrown into boiling water for rewarming". Medical use
Various degrees of hypothermia may be deliberately induced in medicine for purposes of treatment of brain injury, or lowering metabolism so that total brain ischemia can be tolerated for a short time. Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest is a medical technique in which the brain is cooled as low as 10 °C, which allows the heart to be stopped and blood pressure to be lowered to zero, for the treatment of aneurysms and other circulatory problems that do not tolerate arterial pressure or blood flow.
The earliest reference to UDCA in PubMed dates to 1957 under an alternative spelling "ursodesoxycholic acid", in a small-scale clinical trial.Ursodeoxycholic acid (application filed by Allergan) was approved for use in the United States in December 1987, and was designated an orphan drug. References
External links
"Ursodiol". Drug Information Portal. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Ursodeoxycholic acid in the British National Formulary (BNF is only available in the UK)