88 INANITION AND MALNUTRITION 



In infantile atrophy and allied conditions of inanition, the weight-height 

 index may drop very low. Thus in 12 fatal cases studied by Jackson ('22) 

 the index averaged 1.65 (range 1.20-2.05), or about 35 per cent below Bardeen's 

 norm (2.54) (see Table 3). A similar degree of emaciation is indicated in a 

 series of 82 observations by Porter ('89) on older children who perished in the 

 Indian famine (Fig. 38). Only two (on account of dropsy) of these were above 

 normal in weight according to height. The data shown in Figs. 37 and 38 

 indicate that a weight-height index 50 per cent subnormal is rarely reached, 

 even in cases of fatal inanition. In many cases of chronic inanition the index is 



Fig. 38. — Field graph showing the weight-height index ( T — . 



Vhei 



weight (g.) 



Xi 



00) in 



vouthful 



ight (cm.) 1 



victims of the Madras famine of 1877-78. (Data from Porter '89.) Of the 82 eases, only 2 

 (probably dropsical) appear above Bardeen's normal weight-height index. The average varies 

 from about 33 per cent below in the younger to 40 per cent below in the older. 



lowered not only by the resultant loss in body weight, but also by an actual 

 coincident increasing body length, due to a persistent skeletal growth, which 

 will next be considered. 



Dystrophic Growth. — That inanition may result in deformity of the body 

 in growing organisms has long been known, but the effect in general was usually 

 attributed merely to variation in the relative reduction of the various organs or 

 parts, as in adults. It is true that (as previously mentioned) cases of "phys- 

 iological inanition" had been recognized in amphibia at the time of metamor- 

 phosis and in the migration of the salmon, during which certain growth changes 

 proceed at the expense of the remainder of the body, with no intake of food from 

 the exterior. These were considered exceptional cases, however, without parallel 

 in the phenomena of inanition in other vertebrates. The possibility of a con- 



