Status Updates From Unnatural Causes: The Life ...

The old lady had almost certainly given in to that strange counter-intuitive urge that can arise in those who are dying of cold. They take off their clothes. Survivors have described feeling very hot as their temperature dropped and really thinking that stripping off was a completely sensible thing to do. This is a common response to hypothermia.

If the body’s core temperature falls below approximately 32°C then heart rate and blood pressure fall and there is a dulling of consciousness. If the body’s temperature falls below about 26°C then death must almost certainly follow, although there is a famous case of someone who reportedly recovered, albeit mutilated by frostbite, from a body temperature of 18°C.

The law recognised that there could be a “disturbance of a mother’s mind which can result from giving birth”, something which today we call postnatal depression, or its even more serious sister, puerperal psychosis.