214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by this affection may vary from slight dejection and ill-humor to the 

 most extreme melancholy, sometimes inducing even a disposition to 

 suicide. The sufferer misconceives every act of friendship, and exag- 

 gerates slight ailments into heavy grievances. So in starvation, the 

 power of reason seems paralyzed and the intellectual faculty dazed 

 really hefore the functions of the body suffer, or even the wasting of 

 its tissue becomes extreme. Such being the case, the unfortunate 

 individual is not accountable for his actions, even if they be criminal 

 in character, long before death puts an end to his sufferings. 



The most deep-rooted and powerful feelings of human nature — the 

 love of a mother for her offspring — are perverted in cases of starva- 

 tion, for we read in Josephus that during the siege of Jerusalem, un- 

 der Titus, mothers ate their own children. A similar case is men- 

 tioned in Scripture as occurring during the famine in Samaria (2 

 Kings, vi, 29) ; if, in such a case, the intellectual faculty was not 

 utterly disorganized, no amount of human agony would account for 

 such complete perversion of nature. 



Referring to this state, Aitken observes : "A depression of the 

 nervous state is very early manifested in the impaired energy of all 

 the vital functions, the weakened condition of the intellectual faculties 

 and moral feelings, and diminution of the general sensibility." As 

 vital activity and mental power are simply the manifestation of con- 

 sumption of material, and, unless the supply of that material in the 

 shape of food is kept up, a progressive waste of both must necessa- 

 rily ensue ; and that which depends for its manifestation on the ma- 

 terial — that is, food — must be the first to go, that being in this case 

 the intellectual faculty — the power of distinguishing right from 

 wrong. 



An old writer (Guianerius) says, " Anchorites, monks, and the 

 rest of that superstitious rank, through immoderate fasting, have been 

 frequently mad," showing that even in early times the fact was known 

 and believed that want of food perverted the higher attributes of the 

 mind before it destroyed life. 



What are the symptoms of death from want of food, and how 

 long can man subsist without solid or liquid nourishment ? Accord- 

 ing to the experiments of Chossat, death takes place in from eight 

 to eleven days, and after forty per cent of the weight of the body is 

 consumed. Now, as this means more of certain tissues than others, 

 it may be interesting to mention those that suffer most. The fat 

 wastes ninety-three per cent of its weight ; the blood, seventy-five ; 

 the spleen, seventy-one ; the liver, fifty-two ; the heart, forty-four ; 

 the bowels, forty-two ; and the muscles, forty-two. On the other 

 hand, the following parts waste much less : thus, the bones waste six- 

 teen per cent ; the eyes, ten ; the skin, thirty-three ; the lungs, twenty- 

 two ; and the nervous system, i. e., the nerves, 07ily two per cent. The 

 point worthy of attention is the almost total consumption of fat 



