250 DIGESTION. 



It is in the relative quantities of the nitrogenous and 

 non-nitrogenous compounds in these different foods that 

 the difference lies, rather than in the presence of substances 

 in one of them which do not exist in the other. The only 

 non- nitrogenous compounds in ordinary animal food are 

 the fat, the saline matters, and water, and, in some in- 

 stances, the vegetable matters which may chance to be in 

 the digestive canals of such animals as are eaten whole. 

 The amount of these, however, is altogether much less 

 than that of the non -nitrogenous substances represented by 

 the starch, sugar, gum, oil, etc., in the vegetable food of 

 herbivorous animals. 



The effects of total deprivation of food have been made 

 the subject of experiments on the lower animals, and have 

 been but too frequently illustrated in man. 



(l). One of the most notable effects of starvation, as 

 might be expected, is loss of weight; the loss being greatest 

 at first, as a rule, but afterwards not varying very much, 

 day by day, until death ensues. Chossat found that the 

 ultimate proportional loss was, in different animals experi- 

 mented on, almost exactly the same; death occurring 

 when the body had lost two-fifths (forty per cent.) of its 

 original weight. 



Different parts of the body lose weight in very different 

 proportions. The following results are taken, in round 

 numbers, from the table given by M. Chossat : 



Fat loses 93 per cent. 



Blood 75 



Spleen 71 



Pancreas 64 ,, 



Liver 52 ,, 



Heart 44 ,, 



Intestines 42 ,, 



Muscles of locomotion . . . 42 ,, 



Stomach loses . . . - 39 >> 



