INANITION. 31 



After a certain period of inanition, febrile movement and 

 general agitation occur ; and there is almost always disturb- 

 ance of the mental faculties, amounting sometimes to furious 

 delirium. Frequently, however, the delirium is of a mild 

 character, with hallucinations. There are cases in which 

 there is no marked mental disturbance, but these are gen- 

 erally in persons who voluntarily suffer starvation. In a dog 

 experimented upon by Collard de Martigny, which died on the 

 thirty-fifth day, from the eleventh to the nineteenth day the 

 animal was in a furious condition, gnawing almost constantly 

 at the bars of the cage. This was followed by a condition of 

 great debility, which continued, with short periods of agita- 

 tion, until death. During inanition, both in man and in the 

 inferior animals, there is very little sleep. 



The length of time that life continues after complete 

 deprivation of food and drink is very variable. The influ- 

 ences of age and obesity have already been referred to. 

 Without citing the numerous individual instances of starva- 

 tion in the human subject which have been reported, it may 

 be stated in general terms, that death occurs after from five 

 to eight days of total deprivation of food. In 1816, one 

 hundred and fifty persons, wrecked on the frigate Medusa/ 

 were exposed on a raft in the open sea for thirteen days. 

 At the end of this time only fifteen were found alive. One 

 of the survivors, M. Savigny, gave, in an inaugural thesis, 

 a very instructive and accurate account of this occurrence, 

 which has been very generally quoted in works of physiol- 

 ogy. Authentic instances are on record where life has been 

 prolonged much beyond the period above mentioned; but 

 they generally occurred in persons who were so situated as 

 not to suffer from cold, which the system under this condi- 

 tion has very little power to resist. In these cases, also, 

 there was no muscular exertion, and water was generally 



ture. For a full discussion of these interesting questions, the reader is referred 

 to the work of Chossat, p. 155 et aeq. 



