STARVATION. 213 



sian, Polish, and indeed all the Slav races, credit the Jews with the use 

 of this rite to this day, and it is one of the many groundless reasons 

 that they hold for the constant persecution of that race. They believe 

 that at the Passover a child is killed and eaten with many dark and 

 unheard-of observances. How thoroughly this absurd tradition is 

 credited may be learned from the perusal of the recent criminal trials 

 in Hungary. 



It has been a pleasant task to the writer to attempt, in the above 

 pages, to excuse the habit of cannibalism among its votaries. It is 

 always unpleasant to remain silent when one hears a comrade unfairly 

 aspersed ; just so it has been with the writer when he has read or 

 heard of the unjust estimation in which all cannibals are held. Many, 

 in fact most writers improperly and wrongly charge cannibalism with 

 being a morbid and unnatural appetite ; in most cases it is nothing but 

 the expression of a natural want. The demand and desire for human 

 flesh would die out in nearly all places were the other flesh obtainable. 

 In those regions where cannibalism still flourishes much may be done, 

 and is done, by the example of the first white settlers — the traders — 

 and the teaching of the missionary, but teaching and example alone 

 will never suflSce to remedy the evil ; the root of the matter must be 

 gone to ; and, to cure it, many and varied animals that are fit for food 

 must be introduced, when the thing will right itself. — Gentleman's 

 Magazine. 



STAEYATION : ITS MOEAL KEV> PHYSICAL EFFECTS. 



Br NATHANIEL ED WARD DAVIES, L. E. C. P. 



THE recent case of cannibalism at sea opens up some curious ques- 

 tions as to the effects of fasting on the moral nature of man. To 

 the superficial observer, death by starvation simply means a wasting 

 of the body, a horrible agony, an increasing weakness, a lethargic state 

 of the brain, and a sleep from which there is no awakening ; but is 

 this all that it means ? While this is going on, let us consider 

 whether or not the intellectual faculty, and with it the power of distin- 

 guishing right from wrong, is not also undergoing a process of wast- 

 ing and death, even before that of the material part, for, however dan- 

 gerous it may be to received opinions to associate the material nature 

 of brain with the moral nature of our being, we are bound to do so 

 to elucidate some of the facts connected with this case. 



Reasoning by analogy, we find that, in many cases of bodily dis- 

 ease, the state of the mind is the first indicator of the mischief going 

 on in the system. Take even such a simple thing as indigestion, 

 which, as every one must know, is only a manifestation of a deranged 

 stomach, and what do we find ? That the lowness of spirits induced 



