178 INANITION AND MALNUTRITION 



Lesage ('11) agreed that the brain in atrophic infants is the last organ to 

 be affected, but states that if the inanition is prolonged the brain also is finally 

 involved. 



From head measurements on 125 children in Czerny's clinic, Sawidowitsch 

 ('14) concluded that "Ernahrungsschadigungen, welcher Artsieauchseinmogen, 

 bewirken eine Hemmung in der Gehirnentwicklung." The changes in body 

 length, body weight and brain volume appear to be independent of each other. 



Lesage ('14) found a brain weight of 460 g. in an atrophic infant of 4 

 months, at which age the normal weight is 620 g. Nobecourt ('16) and 

 Marfan ('21), however, support the doctrine that the brain weight in infants is 

 largely independent of the body weight. This is likewise confirmed by the 

 observations of Nicolaeff in famine-stricken children. 



Jackson ('22) studied the weights of the body and of various organs (see 

 Tables 2 and 3) in about 50 atrophic infants in comparison with the norms for 

 (1) final body weight; (2) maximum body weight; (3) body' length; and (4) age. 

 In this series, the brain averaged about 26 per cent above the norm for final 

 body weight; 1.5 per cent above the norm for the maximum body weight 

 observed during life; 7.7 per cent below the norm for body length; and 12.3 per 

 cent below the norm for age. Thus the brain weight averages slightly higher 

 than that corresponding to the maximum body weight, but lags slightly behind 

 that corresponding to the body length (which has been shown to increase during 

 inanition). That the brain weight in emaciated infants in general averages 

 approximately normal according to body length is apparent from the field 

 graph shown in Fig. 60. Of the individual data represented, 25 (larger dots) 

 are Minnesota cases; the others are from various sources. 



Brain Weight in Adult Animals. — The resistance of the brain toward inan- 

 ition was discovered by Collard de Martigny (1828), who noted that the brain 

 appeared unchanged in size in several starved dogs and rabbits. Chossat ('43) 

 first studied the weight of the brain during inanition. In 10 pigeons on total 

 inanition with loss of about 40 per cent in body weight, the brain weight aver- 

 aged 2.25 g., which exactly equals that in 10 controls of the same initial 

 body weight. Since it is difficult to determine precisely the line of separation 

 between the brain and spinal cord, their combined weight was found to be 

 3.08 g. in the controls and 3.02 g. in the test pigeons, giving an apparent 

 loss of 1.9 per cent. The (combined) decrease in dry weight appears relatively 

 greater, from 0.64 to 0.58 g., a loss of 9.4 per cent. Findlay ('21) recently 

 likewise found practically no loss in the brain weight of starved pigeons and 

 fowls (Table 13). 



In a cat losing about 50 per cent in body weight on total inanition, Bidder 

 and Schmidt ('52) compared the weight of brain and spinal cord with that in 

 a normal control of similar initial body weight. This gave an apparent loss 

 of 37.6 per cent, which was evidently due to a large individual variation. Von 

 Bibra ('54) found no essential change in the brain weights (fresh or dry) in 

 starved rabbits. Valentin ('57) noted weights indicating a loss of about 5 per 

 cent in the brain of marmots with loss of 35.5 per cent in body weight after 166 

 days of hibernation. 



