Title: How Does a Heat Wave Affect the Human Body? - Scientific American
Headings: How Does a Heat Wave Affect the Human Body?
How Does a Heat Wave Affect the Human Body?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (S)
Recent Articles by Katherine Harmon

Content: The number-one factor that ameliorates death from heat is access to air conditioning. And I've read that fans don't work to prevent overheating in really hot temperatures…
Not only does it not work, it actually makes it worse. We compare it to a convection oven. By blowing hot air on a person, it heats them up rather than cools them down. Are modern humans neglecting to do something our ancestors did to survive the heat? I think it's always been a problem. There's history over hundreds of years of people dying of heat. Philadelphia in 1776 had a major heat wave that caused deaths. We're also living to older ages, and we're more urban now than we have been in the history of the human species. That intense crowding can combine with the heat island effect in big cities.