294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The Theory that Hunger is a General Sensation 



The conception that hunger arises from a general condition of the 

 body rests in turn on the notion that, as the body uses up material, the 

 blood becomes impoverished. Schiff advocated this notion, and sug- 

 gested that poverty of the blood in food substance affects the tissues in 

 such manner that they demand a new supply. The nerve cells of the 

 brain share in this general shortage of provisions, and because of in- 

 ternal changes, give rise to the sensation. 6 Thus is hunger explained 

 as an experience dependent on the body as a whole. 



Three classes of evidence are cited in support of this view. 



1. "Hunger Increases as Time Passes" — a Partial Statement. — 

 The development of hunger as time passes is a common observation 

 which quite accords with the assumption that the condition of the body 

 and the state of the blood are becoming constantly worse, so long as 

 the need, once established, is not satisfied. 



While it is true that with the lapse of time hunger increases as the 

 supply of body nutriment decreases, this concomitance is not proof that 

 the sensation arises directly from a serious encroachment on the store 

 of food materials. If this argument were valid we should expect 

 hunger to become more and more distressing until death. There is 

 abundant evidence that the sensation is not thus intensified; on the 

 contrary, during continued fasting hunger wholly disappears after the 

 first few days. Luciani, who carefully recorded the experience of the 

 faster Sucei, states that after a certain time the hunger feelings vanish 

 and do not return. 7 And he tells of two dogs that showed no signs of 

 hunger after the third or fourth day of fasting; thereafter they re- 

 mained quite passive in the presence of food. Tigerstedt, who also has 

 studied the metabolism of starvation, declares that although the desire 

 to eat is very great during the first day of the ordeal, the unpleasant 

 sensations disappear early, and that at the end of the fast the subject 

 may have to force himself to take nourishment. 8 The subject, " J. A.," 

 studied by Tigerstedt and his co-workers, reported that after the fourth 

 day of fasting, he had no disagreeable feelings. 9 Carrington, after 

 examining many persons who, to better their health, abstained from 

 eating for different periods, records that " habit-hunger " usually lasts 

 only two or three days and, if plenty of water is drunk, does not last 

 longer than three days. 10 Viterbi, a Corsican lawyer, condemned to 

 death for political causes, determined to escape execution by depriving 



6 Schiff, "Physiologie de la digestion," Florence and Turin, 1867, p. 40. 



7 Luciani, "Das Hungern," Hamburg and Leipzig, 1890, p. 113. 



8 Tigerstedt, Nagel's "Handbueh der Physiologie," Berlin, 1909, I., p. 376. 



9 Johanson, Landergren, Sonden and Tigerstedt, Shandinavisches Archiv 

 ■fur Physiologie, 1897, VII., p. 33. 



10 Carrington, "Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition," New York, 1908, p. 555. 



