36 ALIMENTATION. 



highly colored, must, judging from the experience in this 

 country, even fall short of the reality. 1 



" What was striking in the first place," says De Meers- 

 man, " during the famine mentioned above, was the extreme 

 emaciation of the body, the livid pallor of the countenance, 

 the hollow cheeks, and, above all, the expression of the eye, 

 of which one could not lose the remembrance when it was 

 once seen. There was, indeed, a strange fascination in that 

 eye, in which all the vitality of the individual seemed to be 

 contained, which glitters with a feverish light; the pupil, 

 enormously dilated, is fixed upon you without winking, and 

 with an interrogative astonishment, in which kindliness is 

 mingled with fear. The movements of the body are slow ; 

 the gait is uncertain ; the hand trembles ; the voice, almost 

 extinct, is tremulous. The intelligence is profoundly affect- 

 ed ; answers are painful ; memory, in the majority, is almost 

 lost. Interrogated concerning the sufferings they endure, 

 these unfortunates answer that they do not suffer, but that 

 they are hungry ! 



" The breath is extremely fetid ; the tongue thin, pointed, 

 elongated, tremulous, almost always red ; the point, often 

 aphthous, is covered with a yellowish and opaque coating ; 

 the epigastrium is retracted, and the skin in that region is, so 

 to speak, drawn to the vertebral column ; it sometimes hap- 

 pens that the epigastrium is distended by meteorism ; the 

 touch then discovers organic engorgements in one part and 

 another of the abdomen. Respiration is slow*, not deep, and 

 often interrupted by sighs. The pulse, sometimes very fre- 

 quent, sometimes remarkably slow, is easily compressed, of 

 astonishing smallness, and disappears under the finger. The 

 secretions are all affected by the alterations in the blood, 

 which is their common source ; but above all, the perspira- 

 tion, which is greatly modified. The skin was dry, yellow, 



1 Dr. Wallace (loc. cit.) alludes to the description of De Meersman as giving 

 a " singularly accurate description " of the condition of exchanged United States 

 soldiers. 



