PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS. 15 



activity; hence these experiments are not clear evidence on under- 

 nutrition and serve only to point out the error of using the last day 

 of fasting for a base-line. 



Russian research on undernutrition: V. V. Pashutin, Albitsky, and 

 I. A. Pashutin, 1887-1902. — While prolonged fasting and complete 

 starvation have received experimental attention in a great many 

 physiological laboratories, surprisingly little attention has been paid to 

 chronic undernutrition, except in Russia. Russians fast frequently 

 during the year and chronic undernutrition is common among the poor 

 classes. It is probable, however, that in the religious fasting seasons 

 the Russians do not fast in the strictest sense of the word, as they are 

 said to continue their work with apparent vigor and sustained vitality, 

 although they lose in weight, indicating that the nutrition must be 

 insufficient.^ As a result of the frequent occurrence of incomplete 

 nutrition among the Russian people, we find that the metaboHsm 

 during undernutrition was studied in the laboratory of Professor 

 V. V. Pashutin by Albitsky and later by I. A. Pashutin. In these 

 well-planned investigations studies were made of the metabolism of 

 animals during insufficient feeding and subsequent realimentation. 



The series of experiments made by Albitsky was extensively dis- 

 cussed by the senior Pashutin in his course on general and experimental 

 pathology .2 The experiments made by the younger Pashutin are 

 reported in a dissertation published in 1895, which gives one of the best 

 general discussions of undernutrition printed as early as that date.^ 

 In this dissertation Pashutin raises the question as to whether the vital 

 processes would be affected if the normal diet were reduced one-fourth, 

 one-third, or one-half. 



The primary object of Albitsky 's experiments was to study the influ- 

 ence of repeated periods of complete fasting (with or without water) 

 and subsequent realimentation. One of the tables in Pashutin's book 

 shows the carbon-dioxide excretion and oxygen consumption for 

 Albitsky's rabbit No. 4, in four successive fasts, and the first and third 

 realimentation periods. For comparison, the table also gives an aver- 

 age normal value which was determined during 4 days of normal feeding 

 prior to the third fasting period. Unfortunately no normal value for 

 the gaseous exchange, either in the post-absorptive state or with food, 

 was obtained before the beginning of the first fasting period. During 

 the first few days of the first and third realimentation periods, the 

 rabbit, confined in the Pashutin respiration chamber, received food for 

 only a few hours daily. Since it is the custom of these animals to eat 



^ I. A. Pashutin, The metabolism of animals during insufficient feeding and subsequent reali- 

 mentation. Diss., St. Petersburg, 1895. See introduction. 



2 V. V. Pashutin, General and experimental pathology (Pathological Physiology), St. Peters- 

 burg, 1902, 2 (1), p. 177 (Russian). So far as we know, the full details of these experi- 

 ments are given in no other place, although mention is made of the fact that the experi- 

 ments were published in part in the report of a convention in Moscow in 1887. 



^ I. A. Pashutin, loc. cit. 



