PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS. 17 



plicated by the fact that considerably larger quantities of food were 

 taken during the third realimentation period. It is interesting to 

 note in this connection that the statement is made that on account 

 of this greater intensity of metabolism which was accompanied, at 

 least in some experiments, by a high temperature,^ the animal in the 

 realimentation period should eat from 1 to 1.5 times as much food as 

 would be taken normally and drink twice as much water to regain the 

 weight lost in fasting. 



While it should be borne in mind that Albitsky's observations on 

 realimentation and metabolism during undernutrition were incidental 

 to the major study, continuing only 3 or 4 days, and the deductions are 

 thus based upon fragmentary evidence, his final conclusions are that, 

 during realimentation with a diet below maintenance, the metabolism 

 per kilogram of body-weight was at first distinctly lower than nor- 

 mal, but as the undernutrition continued, the metabolism gained in 

 intensity till it more nearly approached the normal. These conclu- 

 sions are distinctly open to question on account of changes in the 

 amount of food administered during the compared periods. 



In contradistinction to Albitsky's conclusions, a statement is made 

 in the dissertation of the younger Pashutin- that a full-grown rabbit, 

 well fed and in a condition of equilibrium, when gradually deprived of 

 25 to 50 per cent of its food and the low nutrition continued for some 

 time, showed but little change in the vital processes and general health, 

 so far as could be judged by the body-weight. This paradoxical 

 phenomenon of the actual change in the metabolism of animals under 

 such conditions of reduced diet was confirmed by the younger Pashu- 

 tin's later study in the same laboratory. An apparatus on the closed- 

 circuit principle, devised by Professor V. V. Pashutin, was used for 

 measuring the carbon-dioxide excretion and the oxygen consumption. 



In this study, rabbits and subsequently dogs were employed. The 

 plan was ingenious in that the amount of nutriment required for main- 

 tenance was first determined and then a certain percentage of the food 

 was gradually withdrawn. The attempt was made in the undernu- 

 trition period so to adjust the diet that the loss in body-weight should 

 be less than 15 per cent. This was done on the supposition that degen- 

 erative changes in the organs and tissues would appear with a 15 per 

 cent loss in weight or, according to one Russian observer, Okhotin, 

 with a 10 per cent loss. Although the food of the first rabbit was 

 reduced to 85 per cent of the normal requirement, the total carbon- 

 dioxide excretion and oxygen consumption did not change or at least 

 did not exceed normal fluctuations. Since the body-weight of this 

 particular rabbit fell only 6 per cent, it is probable that no definite 

 conclusions can be drawn from the data. With a second rabbit the 



^ Another Russian writer, Manassein (Medical Information, 1871), in experiments with animals 

 wth complete starvation, also noted a high temperatxire, which he characterized as febrile. 

 * I. A. Pashutin, loo. cit. 



