356 ON DIGESTION AND NUTRITIVE ABSORPTION. 



which has been set down to caprice or obstinacy, and punished accordingly, 

 may be actually a proof of the deficiency of the supply, which we might 

 expect to have been voraciously devoured, if really less than the wants of the 

 system require. 



473. The smallest quantity of food upon which life is known to have been 

 supported with vigour, during a prolonged period, is that on which Cornaro 

 states himself to have subsisted. This was no more than 12 oz. a day, chiefly 

 of vegetable matter, for a period of 58 years. There is only one instance on 

 record in which his plan was followed ; and there are probably few who could 

 long persevere in it, at least among those whose avocations require much 

 mental or bodily exertion. It is certain, however, that life, with a moderate 

 amount of vigour, may be preserved for some time with a very limited amount 

 of food ; this appears from the records of shipwreck and similar disasters. In 

 regard, however, to those who have been stated to fast for a period of months 

 or even years, taking no nutriment, but maintaining an active condition, it may 

 be safely asserted that they were impostors, probably possessing unusual 

 powers of abstinence, which they took care to magnify. The instances in 

 which the life of man, or of other mammalia, has been prolonged to the greatest 

 extent without water, are those in which, from the peculiarity of the circum- 

 stances, the cutaneous exhalation must have been reduced to a very small 

 amount, or in which there may have been an actual absorption of water by the 

 skin and lungs. Thus, Fodere mentions that some workmen were extricated 

 alive, after fourteen days' confinement in a cold damp cavern, in which they 

 had been buried under a ruin. And there is a well-known case of a hog, 

 which was buried in its stye for 160 days, under thirty feet of the chalk of 

 Dover clifT, and was dug out alive at the end of that time, reduced in weight 

 from 160 Ibs. to 40 Ibs.: here the temperature would be kept up by the non- 

 conducting power of the chalk around ; and the air surrounding the animal 

 would soon become sufficiently charged with fluid to resist further evaporation. 

 The time during which life can be supported under total abstinence, is usually 

 stated to vary from 8 to 10 days ; the period may be greatly prolonged, how- 

 ever, by the occasional use of water, and still more by a very small supply of 

 food. In a case recorded by Dr. Willan, of a young gentleman who starved 

 himself under the influence of religious delusion, life was prolonged for 60 days ; 

 during the whole of which time nothing else was taken than a little orange 

 juice. In a somewhat similar case which occurred under the Author's notice, 

 in the person of a young French lady, more than 15 days elapsed between the 

 time that she ceased to eat regularly and the time of her being compelled to 

 take nourishment ; during this period she took a good deal of exercise, and 

 her strength seemed to suffer but little, although she swallowed solid food only 

 once, and then in small quantity. If the cessation of muscular exertion be 

 complete, it seems that life is usually more prolonged than where exercise of 

 any kind is performed ; and this is what might naturally be expected. In certain 

 states of the system, commonly known as Hysterical, there is frequently a very 

 remarkable disposition for abstinence, and power of sustaining it. In a case 

 of this kind, which occurred under the Author's own notice, a young lady 

 who had suffered severely from the tetanic form of hysteria was unable to take 

 food for three weeks. The slightest attempt to introduce a morsel of solid 

 matter into the stomach, occasioned very severe vomiting and retching ; and 

 the only nourishment taken during the period mentioned, was a cup of tea 

 once or twice a day, on many days not even this being swallowed. Yet the 

 strength of the patient rather increased than diminished during this period ; 

 her muscles became firmer and her voice more powerful. It may be well to 

 remark that, under such circumstances, the continual persuasions of anxious 



