CHAP. VIL] ULTIMATE PHENOMENA OF ANIMAL NUTRITION. 145 



one cell, or of a group of identical cells, abstinence causes the 

 dissolution of the organisms in the ambient medium, the direct 

 return to the mineral world. This is what indeed takes place in 

 the most complex beings ; but here the scene is more varied ; for 

 the body of the superior animals is an aggregate of various 

 organs and apparatus, constituted by the grouping, the intrication 

 of anatomical elements dissimilar to each other, peculiar in form 

 and function. The body of the higher mammifers must then be 

 considered as a republic hierarchically organised with division of 

 labour. To one tissue is attached secretion, to another movement, 

 to another sensibility, motility, thought, &c., to all life ; that is to 

 say, the movement of assimilation and dis-assimilation, but more 

 or less tenacious, rapid, and energetic. The result is that towards 

 abstinence each of these tissues takes a different attitude, that 

 when once the food is cut or furnished in an insufficient quantity, 

 our histological citizens are more or less slowly re-absorbed and 

 perish. Those which are first destroyed are either the least 

 robust, or those which have the most urgent nutritive needs, 

 those which, from their essence, are the seat of the most rapid 

 mutations. They dissolve, and the immediate principles which 

 constituted them are re absorbed and pass back into the circu- 

 latory torrent ; for there is circulation in all the very complex 

 animals. The blood gives back to the tissues that which it has 

 just taken from them ; but it takes from some to give to others ; 

 it first satisfies the most exacting to the detriment of the more 

 patient. In short, the more voracious and active of the anato- 

 mical elements devour those which are more feeble, and live at 

 their expense. 



According to Chossat, 1 whose work is the authority upon this 

 question, the death of an animal from total or gradual abstinence 

 takes place when the animal has lost about forty-hundredths of 

 its total weight, or sometimes fifty-hundredths, if the animal is 

 fat. The following table will indicate the unequal repartition of 

 loss in the different organs : 



1 Chossat, liecherches Exptrimcntales sur V Inanition, 4, Paris, 1S43. 



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