EFFECTS OF DEPRIVATION OF FOOD 447 



PERCENTAGE OF PHOSPHORIC ACID (P 2 O 5 ) IN SOME FRESH FOODS. (QUOTED 



FROM GlRARD, BY HuTCHINSON, IN "FOOD AND DIETETICS.") 



Vegetable. 



Carrot 



Turnip 



Cabbage 



Potato 



Chestnuts 



Barley meal . . . 



Salts in the body not only take part in the reactions themselves, but they 

 stimulate in other substances reactions that are of incalculable benefit to 

 the body. 



The necessity for the taking of water in order to balance the daily ex- 

 cretion, is sufficiently obvious. Man will live only a few days if deprived of 

 water. 



Effects of Deprivation of Food. The animal body deprived of all 

 food dies from starvation in the course of a variable time. The length of 

 time that any given animal will live in such a condition depends upon many 

 circumstances, the chief of which are the nature and activity of the metab- 

 olism of its tissues. 



The effect of starvation on the lower animals is, first of all, as might be 

 expected, a loss of weight. The loss is greatest at the beginning of the dep- 

 rivation period, but afterward decreases to a level from which it does not 

 vary much day by day until death ensues. Chossat found that the ultimate 

 proportional loss in different animals experimented on was almost exactly 

 the same, death occurring when the body had lost 40 per cent, of its original 

 weight. Different parts of the body lose weight in very different proportions. 

 The following most noteworthy losses are taken, in round numbers, from 

 the table given by Chossat: 



Per cent. Per cent. 



Fat 93 Liver 52 



Blood 75 Muscles 43 



Spleen 71 ; Nervous tissues 2 



Pancreas 64 



These figures are in practical agreement with those of later experimenters. 

 They show that the chief losses are sustained by the adipose tissue, the 

 muscles and glands. The nervous structures and the heart are maintained 

 at the expense of the other tissues and show but little change. 



The effect of starvation on the temperature of the various animals ex- 

 perimented on by Chossat was very distinct. For some time the variation 

 in the daily temperature was more marked than its absolute and continuous 



