i66 



INANITION AND MALNUTRITION 



Recovery upon Refeeding. — Stewart ('16) found that in young albino rats 

 held at maintenance for several weeks, and in which the musculature was pre- 

 sumably above normal in weight, approximately normal conditions are restored 

 after the first week or two of refeeding upon adequate diet. In younger rats, 

 underfed from birth to 6 or 10 weeks of age, Jackson and Stewart ('19) observed, 

 upon refeeding to a body weight of 25-75 g. that the musculature lags 

 behind and appears slightly below normal weight. Similarly in young rats 

 refed fully after long periods of inanition, Jackson and Stewart ('20) found in 

 most cases a slight deficit in the weight of the musculature. However, the 

 differences are so slight and variable that their significance is somewhat doubtful. 



Histological Changes in the Musculature. — The histological changes also 

 may be grouped according to those in the adult and the young, both human and 

 infrahuman. 



Fig. 58. — -Cross section showing the his- 

 tological structure of skeletal muscle in a man 

 who died from starvation. The muscle fibers 

 appear extremely atrophied and separated 

 from the endomysium by extensive spaces. 

 CMeyer '17.) 



Fig. 59. — Cross section showing the his- 

 tological structure of cardiac muscle in a man 

 who died from starvation. The muscle fibers 

 appear variably atrophic and shrunken, in 

 places separated by extensive spaces inter- 

 mingled with the connective tissue stroma. 

 (Meyer '17.) 



Adult Human. — Schultzen ('62, '63) described fat droplets and indistinct 

 cross stria tion in the skeletal muscle fibers of a 19 year old girl who had starved 

 to death. "Striationem transversam bene perspicuam reddere non licuit. 

 Inter fibrillas magnae adipis guttae." Hayem ('77), in cases of starvation dur- 

 ing and after the siege of Paris, found that the lesions in the muscle fibers appear 

 more distinct in chronic than in acute inanition, and include: (1) simple atrophy, 

 the cross striation remaining unaffected; (2) granular degeneration; (3) fatty 

 degeneration; (4) pigmentary degeneration. The interstitial connective tissue 

 tends to hyperplasia (fibrosis). 



Popow ('85a) studied the changes in muscle fibers (human and animal) 

 during starvation, noting decreased diameter, also granular, fatty and some- 

 times waxy degeneration. Landau ('10) noted fatty degeneration in the muscle 

 fibers in various diseases involving general cachexia or nutritional disturbance 



