EFFECTS ON THE INTEGUMENT 1 29 



in 1870, according to Decaisne ('71), in some cases (12 out of 43 studied) young 

 and vigorous women, in spite of malnutrition, were able to continue milk secre- 

 tion sufficient to maintain their nursing infants. Similarly, during the recent 

 war, Tschirch ('16), Steinhardt ('17) and Lande ('19) found the ability to nurse 

 their offspring was not reduced in German women. Opitz ('18) and Momm 

 ('20) found the milk reduced in amount, but unchanged in chemical composition. 

 As Lusk ('21) remarks: "All this confirms the biological principle of the sacrifice 

 of the mother for the welfare of the offspring." This principle has its limita- 

 tions, however, and in some localities the results were less favorable, doubtless 

 depending upon the character and degree of the inanition. Ruge ('16), for 

 example, found that malnutrition of the mother causes marked decrease in 

 both quantity and quality of the milk secreted. Loenne ('18) likewise noted a 

 decreased capacity for lactation, which, according to Klitting ('21) resulted in a 

 greater postnatal loss of weight in the newborn. Briining ('18) ascribed the pro- 

 longation of the time required to recover the postnatal loss of weight to a deter- 

 ioration in the quality, rather than in the quantity, of the maternal milk. In 16 

 of Decaisne's cases (above mentioned) there was practically no milk secreted, 

 and three-fourths of the infants died of inanition. 



It is well known that an extreme degree of atrophy of the mammary glands is 

 also commonly found in various diseases involving marked emaciation, such as 

 tuberculosis and cancer, as well as in certain types of partial inanition to be 

 mentioned later. 



(B) Changes in the Integument during Partial Inanition 



Under this heading will be considered the structural changes in the integu- 

 ment upon diets deficient in protein (including malnutritional edema and pel- 

 lagra), salts (including rickets,) vitamins (including scurvy), and water. 



Protein Deficiency. — Osborne and Mendel ('n) noted certain changes in 

 the hair coat of young albino rats whose growth was retarded by diets incomplete 

 in proteins. Similar changes were observed by Wheeler (/13) in young mice on 

 inadequate protein diets. Evvard ('12) found that maize-fed pregnant sows 

 give birth to many weakling pigs, with the skin lighter, anemic and deficient in 

 hair development. He ascribed this to calcium deficiency; but experiments 

 later (Evvard, Cox and Guernsey '14) indicated that the protein deficiency is 

 the most important factor in the maize diet. (Osborne has shown that zein is 

 deficient especially in tryptophan and lysin.) Skin lesions were observed also 

 in rats on the maize diet by Abderhalden ('19), and by several investigators 

 attempting to produce experimental pellagra in animals by maize diets (cited by 

 Marie '08, '10). Osborne andMendel ('16a) observed that with corn-gluten food 

 (deficient in trytophan and lysin) young chicks were stunted in growth and the 

 body remained covered with down, as at the beginning of the experiment. 

 However, a few feathers continued growth which had already begun. In 

 another experiment ('16b), in a young rat held at maintenance by a diet lacking 

 lysin, a patch of hair on the animal's back was dyed red at the beginning of the 

 experiment. This color remained unchanged for 6 months; then lysin was 



