MOVEMENTS OF T 1 E ALIMENTARY CANAL. 127 



him, and recommended that he should be removed to a private asylum. 

 JVt'ore this was carried into effect, I was requested to see him. A different 

 treatment and regimen, with a gradual increase of nourishment, were adopted, 

 and he was well in a few days, and within a fortnight returned to his profes- 

 sional avocations." 



84. The time during which life can he supported under entire abstinence 

 from loud or drink, is usually stated to vary from eight to ten days; 1 the 

 period may be greatly prolonged, however, by the occasional use of water, 

 and still more by a very small supply of food ; or, even, it would seem, by a 

 moist condition of the surrounding atmosphere, which obstructs the exhala- 

 tion of liquid from the body. Thus, Fodere mentions that some workmen 

 were extricated alive, after fourteen days' confinement in a cold damp vault, 

 in which they had been buried under a ruin. Dr. Sloan has given an ac- 

 count 2 of the case of a healthy man ;et. 65, who was found alive after having 

 been shut up in a coal-mine for twenty-three days, during the first ten of 

 which he was able to procure and swallow a small quantity of foul water; 

 he was in a state of extreme exhaustion, and died three days afterwards, 

 notwithstanding the attempts made to recover him. It would seem as if 

 certain conditions of the nervous system, especially those attended with 

 peculiar emotional excitement, are favorable to the prolongation of life 

 under such circumstances. Thus, in a case recorded by Dr. Willan, of a 

 young gentleman who starved himself under the influence of a religious 

 delusion, life was prolonged for sixty days; during the whole of which time, 

 nothing else was taken than a little orange juice. In a somewhat similar 

 case which occurred under the Author's notice, in the person of a young 

 French lady, more than fifteen days elapsed between the time that she 

 ceased to eat regularly, and the time of her being compelled to receive 

 nourishment; during this period she took a good deal of exercise, and her 

 strength seemed to suffer but little, although she swallowed solid food only 

 once, and then in small quantity. Again, in certain states of the system 

 commonly known as " hysterical," there is frequently a very remarkable 

 disposition for abstinence, and power of sustaining it. It may be well to 

 remark that, under such circumstances, the continual persuasions of anxious 

 friends are very injurious to the patient, whose return to her usual state will 

 probably take place the earlier, the more completely she is left to herself. 



3. Movements of the Alimentary Canal. 



85. The motions by which Food is conveyed to the Mouth and introduced 

 into its cavity, constituting the acts of Prehension and lnge*tion, are ordi- 

 narily considered to be voluntary, at least in the adult; and it is indubitable 

 that the Will has entire control over them. Nevertheless, they belong to the 

 class of " secondarily automatic " movements; and like those of locomotion, 

 may be kept up when the will is in abeyance, by the suggesting and guiding 

 influence of sensations, thus being performed under the same essential condi- 

 tions as the purely "consensual" or "seusori-motor" actions. 3 The necessity 



1 There seems adequate evidence, that a state which may be characterized as one 

 of ^';//fc-o;>e, the animal functions being entirely suspended, and the organic functions 

 being reduced to an extremely low ebb may be prolonged for man}' days, or even 

 weeks, provided the temperature of the body be not too much reduced. This class of 

 facts, however, will be more appropriately considered hereafter (chap. xxi). 



- Medical Gazette, vol. xvii, p. 389. 



3 This, the Author thinks, will be conformable to the experience of most of his 

 readers ; who will find, if they analyze their own consciousness, that they continue to 

 eat while their whole attention is given to some abstract train of thought, or to some 

 external object. But a remarkable case has been placed on record by Mr. Dunn 



