LONG FASTINGS AND STARVATION. 539 







any condition of the mucus of the pharynx. It is caused by the 

 exhaustion of the watery elements of the blood. It is therefore 

 removable by injections of water, and by bathing, when water is 

 absorbed by the pores. 



If hunger is not satisfied, it disappears after a certain length 

 of time. The most intense suffering is endured during the first 

 twenty-four hours, after which the pain diminishes. The char- 

 acteristic phenomenon exhibited by an animal subjected to star- 

 vation is the constant diminution of weight. I have made many 

 experiments on this loss, comparing animals of various sizes, and 

 have determined that the function of dehydration or reduc- 

 tion of weight is in direct relation with the size of the animal ; 

 and I believe that I can deduce a great rule of comparative 

 physiology that the activity and intensity of all the functions are 

 determined by size. Carnivorous animals appear to bear fasting 

 better than herbivorous kinds. The latter eat nearly all the time, 

 and are ill when they have to stop ; but carnivorous animals, in 

 the wild state, are often forced to endure abstentions of consider- 

 able length ; and a fast of several days is almost a physiological 

 condition with them. 



When we examine the phases of the loss of weight of a starv- 

 ing animal, we find that it loses much during the first days. Then 

 a moderate drain sets in. Again, in the last days considerable loss 

 takes place, and this is the forerunner of death. 



Cold-blooded animals can support inanition during a prodi- 

 giously long time. M. Vaillant has told me of a python weighing 

 seventy kilogrammes that lived twenty-three months without 

 eating ; M. Colin, of a rattlesnake that lived twenty-nine months. 

 Redi mentions a tortoise that lived eighteen months, and a frog 

 sixteen months, without food. When we have frogs in our 

 aquariums waiting to be experimented upon, we never feed them 

 and they never starve. Dogs can endure abstinence, on the aver- 

 age, of thirty days ; cold-blooded animals, twice as long. They 

 are capable of this, because their tissues are consumed more 

 slowly, and do not require so frequent renewing. With both 

 classes the fatal limit is reached when the loss of weight amounts 

 to forty per cent. This point is reached by the warm-blooded 

 animal ten times as quickly as by the cold-blooded one, because 

 its nervous system is ten times as active. The relation of the 

 nervous system to the intensity of the chemical exchanges of 

 vital action is shown by the existence of hibernating animals, or 

 warm-blooded animals which periodically become cold-blooded. 

 Becoming torpid at the approach of the cold season, their breath- 

 ing and circulation become slow, their motions weaker, their 

 eyelids close, they fall into their winter sleep, and their tempera- 

 ture descends to about 40 Fahr. 



