790 STARVATION. [Boon n. 



glandular organs, the tissues which we have seen to be eminently 

 metabolic, suffered most. Then come the muscles, that is to say, 

 the skeletal muscles, for the loss in the heart was very trifling ; 

 obviously this organ, on account of its importance in carrying on 

 the work of the economy, was spared as much as possible : it was 

 in fact fed on the rest of the body. The same remark applies to 

 the brain and spinal cord ; in order that life might be prolonged 

 as much as possible, these important organs were nourished by 

 material drawn from less noble organs and tissues. The blood 

 suffered proportionally to the general body-waste, becoming gra- 

 dually less in bulk but retaining the same specific gravity ; of 

 the total dry proteid constituents of the body 17 '3 p. c. was lost, 

 which agrees very closely with the 17 '6 p. c. dry material (almost 

 wholly proteid) lost by the blood. It is worthy of remark that the 

 tissues in general became more watery than in health. Similar 

 observations on other animals have led to similar results, the chief 

 discordance being that in some cases the bones have suffered 

 considerable loss, in others comparatively little. We might be 

 inclined to infer from these data the conclusions that metabolism 

 is most active in the adipose tissue, next in such metabolic tissues 

 as the hepatic cells and spleen-pulp, then in the muscles, and so 

 on; but we have no warrant for these conclusions. Because 

 the loss of cardiac and nervous tissue was so small, we must not 

 therefore infer that their metabolism was feeble ; they may have 

 undergone rapid metabolism, and yet have been preserved from 

 loss of substance by their drawing upon other tissues for their 

 material. The great loss of adipose tissue is obviously to be 

 explained by the fact that that tissue is essentially a storehouse of 

 material, and the similarly great though less loss in the spleen and 

 liver indicates, as indeed the facts recorded in the previous chapter 

 suggest, that these organs too serve in part as storehouses. 



During this starvation period, the urine contained in the form 

 of urea (and that practically represents all the nitrogen of the 

 urine) 27 '7 grammes of nitrogen. Now the amount of muscle 

 which was lost during the period contained about 15'2 of nitrogen. 

 Thus, more than half the nitrogen of the output during the 

 starvation period must have come ultimately from the metabolism 

 of muscular tissue. This fact we have already used in discussing 

 the history of urea and shall have occasion to make further use of 

 it hereafter. The amount of urea excreted per diem has been 

 observed in some cases to fall very rapidly during the first day or 

 two of starvation, and then to diminish gradually, though often 

 shewing considerable irregularities. In other cases no such large 

 initial fall has been observed. It is most marked in animals which 

 have been well fed before the beginning of the starvation, especially 

 in those which have had a rich nitrogenous diet ; and the discharge 

 in these cases of an extra quantity of urea in the first day or two 

 is obviously connected with that immediate effect of food on the 



