Preparation
Scott and his team were woefully undernourished on their expedition to the South Pole.  Polar explorers like Scott knew that they would face the challenge of carrying enough food for the whole trip.  The more food an explorer added to the sledge, the heavier it became, the harder it became to pull, and the slower he moved; eventually the explorer would reach a point of diminishing returns.  Scott tried to solve the problem using two methods: 

• First, Scott spent a long period of time setting up depots at various stages along the route South which contained food, fuel, and other supplies.
• Second, Scott went forward to the Pole with a large support team that combined the use of animals and many men.  This way, the most food could be taken the farthest distance.  Along the way, the animals would be sacrificed as needed, turning them into a truly portable food source.

At a final stage, Scott and a much smaller team would break away from the support group and continue on to the South Pole.  If traveling in the Antarctic wasn't already life threatening by this stage, everything was just about to become even more dangerous.

Perspiration
Prepare as much as he might, Scott (and explorers of his time) were not aware of the knowledge we take for granted today.  Scott faced significant informational disadvantages.  The knowledge of human physiology with regard to sustained exercise was only just beginning to take form in scientific circles. No one knew about calories, no one knew about hypoxia, no one knew about vitamin C, and the knowledge of dehydration was near to non-existent .


Movement in the Antarctic results in perspiration.  Dragging a 600lb sledge will make you sweat that much more. Scott and his team sweat. A lot. The diary entries of all the explorers are filled with pages of them describing how surprised they were to find their clothes soaked with sweat despite the fact that it was -40 degrees Farenheit outside.


Scott would have been dehydrated constantly, particularly during the final stages of his trip to and from the Pole.  Dehydration affects your ability to focus, your heart beats faster, but less blood moves around your body.  Your whole body starts undergoing stress as you put strain on joints that need water for flexibility. As it gets worse, it begins to affect decision making abilities and emotions. you experience pain in muscles - toxins that would normally get excreted remain in your body because you can't wash them out.


What makes matters worse is that there was water everywhere around Scott.  Turning the Antarctic snow into water either required him to melt it in a pot in his tent, or just eat snow.  The first option disappeared on his way home from the Pole because he ran out of fuel, and the second option was dangerous because it would force his body to work harder to increase its core temperature.


In Antarctic Simulator 2014: Heroes of the Antarctic the player will have to manage their hydration levels or face similar dangers.

A Quick Preface
Scott and his team were woefully undernourished on their expedition to the South Pole.  Polar explorers like Scott knew that they would face the challenge of not being able to carry enough food for the whole trip, and Scott tried to solve it using two methods: 

• First, Scott spent a long period of time setting up depots at various stages along the route which contained food, fuel, and other supplies.
  
• Second, Scott went forward to the Pole with a large support team that combined the use of animals and many men.  This way, the most food could be taken the farthest distance.  Along the way, the animals would be sacrificed as needed, but much more food could be hauled.

At a final stage, Scott and a much smaller team would break away from the support group and continue on to the South Pole.  This life threatening journey just became even more treacherous.

The Body Can't Compete
Scott and his sledge team were burning about 7,000 calories per day but only consuming 4,500 calories from their rations.  When climbing the Austral Plateau, his team was burning 11,000 calories per day.  Consequently, he was losing about 1.5Kg (3.3lbs) every week in body mass.  He was on a starvation diet and there was nothing he could do about it.

And that is the nature of any man hauling trip to the South Pole: the traveler has to get to the Pole and back to a depot before the act of traveling starves him or her to death.  But it's not just starvation that you have to worry about, disease and injury are other factors. 

So where does thermogenesis fit into all of this? Thermogenesis is the process of heat production in the body, and is automated by the body to maintain a stable core temperature.  Most of the heat production in the body comes from the liver and kidneys - the organs that metabolize most of what we consume.  As Scott and his team were making their way home from the South Pole, their body mass had dropped by 40%.  At the start, Scott's body was making up for the calorie deficit by consuming fat.  When his body fat ran out, his body began converting muscle into energy.  The more he walked, the weaker he became, and the harder it became to walk. During his final moments in life, his body most likely began converting his vital organs into an energy source in a last ditch effort to regulate his body temperature.

It was just too much.  With no muscle or fat to insulate his body, the cold was creeping inwards.  His limbs became colder and ice crystals formed in the blood vessels, shattering them and swelling his feet and hands.  This was frostbite. 

When Scott finally died with his two close friends, Wilson and Bowers, he had pushed his body to the ultimate limits any man could.  He died 11 miles away from his depot.  A mere day's travel.  Physiologists believe he could have made it home alive.  His failure to survive is currently regarded as a result of several decision making failures, rather than a lack of knowledge, whereas at the time people believed his death was caused by his struggle with nature and the cold blizzards of the Antarctic.

I dare anyone playing Antarctic Simulator 1914: Heroes of the Antarctic to do better.

Below you should see a graph of the history of the use of the word thermogenesis.  

The use of the word "thermogenesis" since 1900.  Source: Google books Ngram Viewer 

There was a big reason why the word antiscorbutic died out over time.  The source of scurvy was finally discovered in 1927 and then confirmed in 1932, and once people realized that scurvy was a deficiency of vitamin C rather than an infection of some kind, the need to find an antiscorbutic died out.  Eat your vegetables! During the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, Scott believed that the cause of scurvy was tainted meat, especially tinned meat. 

Scott, while not a doctor or scientist, was scientifically oriented and reasonably up to date in the main medical ideas of the time.  On his journeys South he would often make things worse for himself and his team by sterilizing the meat (boiling for a long time) which would result in the destruction of most of the vitamin C.  But that's not all. Scurvy, in Edwardian Britain, was something of a hush-hush illness.  Britain had been the first to solve the crisis of scurvy on long voyages, if they didn't know the cause they had at least found some potential cures.  So there was a stigma attached to anyone who got it: you could have avoided this.  When Scott and others experienced it on their journeys South, it was a big blow.  The voyages had been meticulously planned. 

Scott may have thought to himself, "How could we have gotten scurvy?" 
And the answer I would give him would be: "it's a miracle you didn't get scurvy sooner." 

Pride was a big factor in many of Scott's decisions.  His flaws lay within his emotional processing of the world around him, and they were also part of his big strengths as a leader.  But that's something I hope the player will witness as they play Antarctic Simulator 1914: Heroes of the Antarctic.

The use of the word "antiscorbutic" since 1900.  Source: Google books Ngram Viewer