506 METABOLISM IN FASTING 



tions of Benedict and Cathcart in reference to the increase of 

 creatin in comparison with creatinin and the occasionally 

 noted occurrence of "albumoses." 58 



Respiratory Quotient. Much attention has been given to 

 observations upon the matter of the respiratory quotient in 

 inanition. As the fasting individual, after the glycogen sup- 

 plies have been used up, lives upon fat and protein the respir- 

 atory quotient must lie between the figures of protein break- 

 down (0.8) and of fat decomposition (0.7). Benedict, as a 

 matter of fact, from experiments upon fourteen fasting 

 human beings in Atwater's respiration apparatus, found in 

 all after the first day of fasting that the quotients were very 

 uniformly 0.74. 59 



Hibernation. Inanition experiments of the greatest in- 

 terest may be observed in nature in case of hibernating ani- 

 mals. In these the exchange is found very much lowered 

 when the temperature falls to 16 to 12 C. ; as in the case of 

 the hedgehog, to one-tenth to one- twentieth of the normal ; in 

 the dormouse, it is said, even to one-hundredth. Studies 

 have been made upon marmots and bats also. Observation of 

 the respiratory quotient in such animals shows completely 

 paradoxical results ; at times the figure is remarkably low, 

 less than has ever been observed in any other conditions 

 (below 0.5, even down as low as 0.23 ). 60 Only a small frac- 

 tion of the oxygen taken in appears as carbon dioxide in 

 these animals, a point which must be interpreted as indicat- 

 ing that the fat (which constitutes the bulk of the reserve 

 material of the hibernating animal) is incompletely burned. 

 However, there are probably formed intermediate oxygen- 



58 Literature upon the Urine of Inanition: Th. Brugsch, 1. c., pp. 301-306. 



88 G. F. Benedict, The Influence of Inanition on Metabolism, published by 

 the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1907. 



60 In hibernating bats, however, according to studies of P. Hari ( F. Tangl's 

 Lab., Budapesth), Pfliiger's Arch., 130, 112, 1909, the respiratory quotient is 

 generally not lower than that found in prolonged inanition experiments in 

 other animals (0.65-0.7) ; only exceptionally were the figures below 0.5. 



