92 INANITION AND MALNUTRITION 



(in rapid recovery from malnutrition); (4) increase in length, weight stationary 

 (in "decomposition" and metabolic disturbances); (5) increase in length, weight 

 decreased (in dyspepsia and "decomposition" during the first 3 months of 

 infancy). 



Jackson ('22) in 12 fatal cases of atrophic infants (Table 2) found that the 

 actual loss of body weight, the final being compared with the maximum recorded 

 during life, averaged 19.2 per cent; when the final body weight is compared with 

 that normal for the final body length, the apparent loss is greater, averaging 

 28.5 per cent. The average difference of 9.3 per cent in the latter case is evi- 

 dently due to the average increase in length due to skeletal growth during the 

 period of malnutrition.- 



Summarizing briefly the dystrophic growth changes in the young of man 

 and other vertebrates, it is clear that growth does not necessarily cease during 

 insufficiency or even total absence of food intake. Under such conditions of 

 inanition, certain tissues appear able to appropriate nutriment and grow at the 

 expense of other parts of the body. Cases of "physiological inanition" in which 

 such developmental or growth changes occur are found in the migrating salmon, 

 the metamorphosis of amphibia, and the human infant during the postnatal 

 loss of birth weight. The most frequent change in the form of the body during 

 dystrophic growth is an abnormal elongation, due to persistent skeletal growth, 

 which accentuates the emaciation caused by the atrophy of the softer tissues. 

 In some cases there is also an enlargement of the head, and disproportionate 

 growth of the extremities. The extent and character of this disproportionate 

 (or uncorrelated) growth vaiies according to age. As will appear later, it also 

 varies remarkably according to the type of inanition (various forms of partial 

 inanition) and in the different parts and organs of the body. All of these 

 dystrophic growth changes apparently contradict Liebig's "Law of the minimum 

 or limiting factor," as strictly interpreted by some authors (cf. von Bunge '01). 



Changes in Adult Proportions (Head , Trunk and Extremities) . — It has already 

 been shown that inanition may produce certain changes in the form of the body 

 in the young, with dystrophic skeletal growth resulting in elongation of the body 

 and accentuating the emaciation. A tendency to abnormal growth of the head 

 and changes in the proportions of the extremities were also noted. It remains to 

 consider what changes in the form of the body and the proportional size of the 

 parts may result from inanition in adult vertebrates. 



Among the lower vertebrates, Harms ('09) observed a definite shortening 

 of the vertebral column in Triton taeniatus and Triton cristatus in 2 or 3 months 

 of inanition. The tail, however, remained unchanged and thus became relatively 

 longer. In the salamander Diemyctylus, however, Morgulis ('n) found a greater 

 shrinkage of the tail than of the body during starvation. According to 

 Kammerer (' 1 2) , in Proteus anguinus fasting in a dark, cool place, the tail becomes 

 relatively shorter, the extremities longer, and the head larger; whereas in a 

 warm, light place the body proportions remain normal. 



In adult albino rats, the proportions were studied by Jackson ('15), 15 rats 

 being subjected to acute inanition (water only) with average loss of ^ per cent 

 in body weight in 9 clays; while 6 were subjected to incomplete inanition (insuffi- 



