53 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of humanity are concerned. And it is a grave fallacy, for on the 

 strength of it hundreds of families are induced each year to 

 locate on the plains with the expectation of farming success- 

 fully. Failure follows, of course, and their only hope is to sell 

 out to trustful new-comers, and move where the natural condi- 

 tions are favorable to agriculture and the prosperity of farm- 

 homes. 







LONG FASTINGS AND STARVATION. 



Bt M. CHARLES KICHET. 



WHAT takes place in an animal deprived of food may be 

 explained by recurrence to the comparison between the 

 animal and the machine, which, though very old and common- 

 place, is still exact and almost inevitable. In the machine, the 

 burning of carbon gives rise to heat and force ; animals also, burn- 

 ing carbon, develop heat and force. The same is true of plants, for 

 they likewise disengage heat and force ; only the plant disengages 

 very little, and the animal much of them. While the plant is 

 stationary, fixed to the ground, the animal is forced to move to 

 find food. We might, indeed, say that all its wonderfully com- 

 plicated organism is in substance only an apparatus attached to 

 the stomach. The lower animals are hardly anything else than a 

 stomach adapted to motion; and the animal is improved as its 

 means of seeking food everywhere and at a distance are perfected. 

 The animal goes out in search of food because it feels a want 

 hunger. Nature, in fact, distrusts the intelligence of her chil- 

 dren, and for that reason has given to all living beings instincts 

 and wants ; and has armed them all, without exception, with the 

 sensation of hunger, to provoke them to seek nourishment. With- 

 out this irresistible feeling no being could live. 



The sensation of hunger is a painful feeling of uneasiness and 

 weakness. It is a general feeling, but is localized apparently in 

 the stomach. Many ancient authors regarded it as a local sensa- 

 tion. Some said that the gastric fluid became more acid and 

 produced a burning feeling in the stomach ; others, that a con- 

 traction of the stomach took place. But, although the sensation 

 of hunger is related to the stomach, it is really general. While it 

 is sometimes alleviated by swallowing earth and stones, such 

 inert substances may deceive it, but do not appease it. It has, 

 moreover, been experimentally determined that the feeling of 

 hunger is not abolished after cutting the pneumogastric or sen- 

 sitive nerve of the stomach. 



So, in thirst we feel a dryness in the back part of the throat. 

 The local sensation is deceptive, for thirst does not depend upon 



