306 INANITION AND MALNUTRITION 



Bourgeois C70) from fasting experiments on various animals (mammals and 

 birds) and an extensive review of the previous literature concluded that the 

 stomach becomes markedly small and constricted; the mucosa greatly folded, 

 pale and not inflammed, although thickened near the cardiac and pyloric ends. 

 The average loss in gastric weight is 33 per cent. 



In fasting dogs of various ages, Falck ('75) found the fundic region of the 

 stomach containing air and some liquid; the mucosa white and greatly wrinkled. 

 The pars pylorica was strongly contracted. 



In tritons starved 8-14 days, Schmidt ('82) noted that the gastric nuclei 

 appeared small and dark, with very few mitoses. Upon refeeding, no mitoses 

 were found in 1% hours; a few appeared in the fundus in 3^—6 hours; but 

 none in the pyloric region until 7 hours after feeding. 



In the stomach of frogs starved for long periods (up to i^ years), Gaglio 

 ('84a) found the stomach waxy white in color, with mucous contents. The 

 serosa and subserosa appear slightly thickened. The muscle tunic in part shows 

 atrophic changes, with loss of striation in the muscle fibers, and degenerative 

 changes in the nuclei. The submucosa is not much affected, but the muscularis 

 mucosae may show changes similar to those in the muscle tunic. The muscle 

 fibers sometimes appear vacuolated, with enlarged nuclei. The greatest changes 

 occur in the tunica mucosa, which shows pronounced atrophy of the gastric 

 glands, with progressive replacement by connective tissue (fibrosis or cirrhosis). 



Bizzozero and Vassale ('87) found no decrease in the number of mitoses of 

 the gastric and intestinal glands in dogs fasting (up to 17 hours only). 



Morpurgo ('88, '89, '89a) in fasting rabbits of various ages usually found no 

 marked changes in the stomach. The lymphoid follicles become atrophic, and 

 sometimes the gastric glands appeared likewise. In the glands, mitoses persist 

 in reduced number, but rarely occurred elsewhere in the stomach. In rabbits 

 refed after a fasting period Morpurgo '(90) observed an increased number of 

 mitoses in the gastric gland cells, but none in the lymphoid or connective tissues. 

 The mast cells had apparently disappeared. 



Coen ('90) noted in the stomach of a rabbit starved 84 hours (without water) 

 an exudate of the gastric and intestinal mucosa, resembling that of gastroenteritis. 

 The exudate, composed of amorphous material and leukocytes, also infiltrated 

 the mucosa and glands, down to the submucosa. Similar, but less marked, 

 appearances were observed in 2 rabbits on water only, and in a kitten on total 

 inanition. 



In dogs fasting several days, Nikolaides and Savas ('95) found, in sections 

 prepared by Altmann's chrome-osmic method, numerous black (fatty?) granules 

 in the epithelial cells of the pyloric and Brunner's glands, but not in the mucous 

 glands. These granules disappeared slowly upon refeeding. 



Lazareff ('95), in guinea pigs starved with average losses in body weight of 

 10, 20, 30 and 36 per cent, found corresponding losses of only 1.9, 6.5, 6.5 and 

 1 1.8 per cent in the gastric weight (Table 5), which are relatively less than the 

 loss in the intestines. Kusmin ('96) likewise found the loss in gastric weight 

 relatively less than that in the intestines of fasting dogs, rabbits and guinea 

 pigs; and Weiske ('97) obtained similar results in fasting rabbits (on water only). 



