204. CAROLINE M. HOLT 
Il. DEFECTIVE DIET EXPERIMENTS 
1. Previous experiments on the effect of starvation upon the central 
nervous system of the rat 
There have been several previous studies upon the effect of 
underfeeding and of starvation upon the central nervous system 
of the albino rat. In 1904, Hatai reported experiments on 
‘partial starvation’ for twenty-one days. He fed large quantities 
of starch with some fat but no proteids of any kind. He obtained 
a deficiency in body weight of 27 per cent in females and 32 
per cent in males. Taking the values from the initial controls 
for a standard, the brains of the test rats showed, at the end of 
twenty-one days, a deficiency of 2.8 per cent for the females 
and 5.8 per cent for the males. Thus the treatment produced 
not only an arrest of brain growth but a loss in absolute brain 
weight. This experiment was followed by a series in which the 
animals, after a defective diet (Oswego starch), were returned 
to a normal diet. Here Hatai (07) found that the effect of 
twenty-one days of partial starvation was eventually compen- 
sated for, so far as brain weight was concerned, but the central 
nervous system had suffered some change in its chemical com- 
position. The following year (08), Hatai published the results 
of further experiments, this time in quantitative underfeeding 
with an adequate ration, in which he concludes that growth 
in the stunted rats is just as normal as in the controls; 1.e., all 
parts are proportionately stunted. 
In 1911, Donaldson published an account of the effect of 
underfeeding, with a quantitatively deficient, but adequate 
ration, on the percentage of water, on the ether-alcohol extrac- 
tives and on medullation in the central nervous system of albino 
rats, showing a slight diminution of percentage of water, slight 
increase in percentage of ether-alcohol extractives, and no not- 
able difference in medullation. 
Jackson (715) found, in young rats maintained at a constant 
weight on a diet of bread and milk, that the relation between 
body weight and brain weight remained unchanged. The brain 
