starvation: 215 



before death takes place ; in fact, death by starvation is really death 

 by cold. As soon as the fat of the body goes — and fat is the princi- 

 ple that keeps up the heat — death takes place ; the temperature of the 

 body diminishes but little until the fat is consumed, then it rapidly 

 falls. 



Chossat — whose experiments on dumb animals are most painful to 

 read — is of opinion that death from exposure to intense cold and death 

 from starvation are one and the same, as, in the torpor of death from 

 want of food, the application of warmth to the body immediately 

 restored consciousness, showing that heat is closely related to the 

 principle of life, as manifested through the nervous system in its more 

 subtile sense. 



The symptoms of starvation from want of food are — severe pain 

 at the pit of the stomach, which is relieved on pressure ; this subsides 

 after a day or two, but is succeeded by a feeling of weakness and 

 " sinking " in the same region ; then an insatiable thirst supervenes, 

 which, if water be withheld, thenceforth becomes the most distressing 

 symptom. The countenance becomes pale and cadaverous, the eyes 

 acquire a peculiarly wild and glistening stare, and general emaciation 

 soon manifests itself. The body then exhales a peculiar foetor, and 

 the skin is covered with a brownish, dirty-looking, and ojffensive secre- 

 tion. The bodily strength rapidly declines ; the sufferer totters in 

 walking, his voice becomes weak, and he is incapable of the least exer- 

 tion. The mental powers exhibit a similar prostration : at first, there 

 is usually a state of stupidity, which gradually increases to imbecility, 

 so that it is difficult to induce the sufferer to make any effort for his 

 own benefit, and on this a state of maniacal delirium frequently super- 

 venes. 



Before death takes place the body appears to be undergoing putre- 

 faction, so that, though it seems to waste in one way, the power of 

 the system to eliminate the effete products is paralyzed, and these, 

 instead of being burned off, as they are when the proper nourishment 

 of the tissues is going on, remain and decompose ; in no other way 

 can the foetor during life be accounted for, and the rapid decomposi- 

 tion after death. This accounts also for the fact that cholera, fever, 

 and blood-poisoning are so much more fatal in the badly-fed than 

 they are in the well-to-do ; the low state of the vitality induced pre- 

 vents the elimination of the poison, and the sufferer dies, not by the 

 virulence of the disease, but by his inability, through weakness, to 

 throw it off. Pestilential diseases always follow in the wake of fam- 

 ine, and destroy more than perish from actual starvation. 



To show how long life may be carried on with a very little food, 

 the following case may be interesting : In February, 1862, a man 

 thirty-six years of age was discovered in a stack near Morpeth dying 

 from starvation. All attempts to rally him failed, and he ultimately 

 died. He was an intelligent man, and had been editor and proprietor 



