Hospital Constructs Hibernation Room for Frozen-Sleep Care (Jul, 1940)

Hospital Constructs Hibernation Room for Frozen-Sleep Care
TO CHECK the value of the new frozen-sleep method of treating cancer (P.S.M., Sept. ’39, p. 43), a refrigerated hibernation room has been set up at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Mechanical refrigeration equipment maintains the treatment room at a temperature of about sixty-five degrees F., so that the body temperature of the patient may be kept between eighty-eight and ninety degrees, or about nine degrees below normal body temperature. A constant watch is maintained over the patient, who remains in the room for periods as long as five days, generally without feeding and in a semiconscious state, although he can be aroused at any time if necessary. The special hospital hibernation chamber is known as the crymotherapy room.