INANITION. 433 



Two very carefully conducted series of observations on in- 

 anition have been made by Bidder and Schmidt on cats. In one 

 case the animal only sometimes obtained a little water ; in the 

 other case water was artificially injected into the stomach. The 

 first series of experiments was made upon a cat weighing 2,572 

 grammes, which had been previously employed in a series of 

 experiments on nutrition. The animal died on the eighteenth day 

 of starvation ; the loss of weight was tolerably constant from the 

 third day to the period of its death ; on the whole it lost 1330*8 

 grammes or 51'7-- of its weight, the average daily loss con- 

 sequently being 73'9 grammes or 2*87^ ; these numbers, as we 

 perceive, far exceed those found by Chossat. During the whole 

 duration of the experiment, the loss of weight was tolerably 

 steady ; from the first to the eighth day it corresponded to the 

 quantity of carbon that was expired (0'56^ to 0'58 of the weight 

 of the body) ; subsequently the amount of carbonic acid which 

 was excreted sunk less than the bodily weight : it was only during 

 the two last days that the excreted carbon sunk very considerably 

 as compared with the loss of bodily weight. 



The secretion of urine at first diminished in a far more rapid 

 proportion than the bodily weight, but afterwards, till the sixteenth 

 day, the loss proceeded in each in almost the same proportion ; 

 the urine, like the carbonic acid, diminished considerably during 

 the two last days. The urine was richer than usual in phosphoric 

 and sulphuric acids ; the chlorides disappeared after the first few 

 days. The ratio between the sulphuric and phosphoric acids in 

 the urine remained constant during the whole period of inanition. 



From the tenth day of inanition all the bile that was secreted 

 passed into the faeces. (Schmidt had calculated the quantity of 

 bile which this animal should secrete from observations on cats in 

 which biliary fistulas had been formed ; see vol. ii, p. 78.) The 

 ingestion of water was found at every period of inanition to. 

 increase the urinary secretion and all its constituents, but it did 

 not affect the exhalation of carbonic acid gas; hence we must 

 conclude, with Schmidt, that the augmentation of the urinary 

 secretion does not in any way depend upon a greater intensity of 

 the process of inanition, but that it is solely dependent upon the 

 circumstance that the urinary constituents, accumulated in the 

 blood, are more rapidly eliminated by the agency of the water. 



Since the muscular substance (with the connective tissue),, 

 when freed from fat, contains, according to Schmidt's analysis, 

 50-0" of carbon, 6'57- of hydrogen, 15'07f of nitrogen, 21' 



VOL. in. 2 F 



