446 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 



starvation as the destruction of proteids. PETTENKOFER and 

 VOIT found, for instance, in a starving dog the following losses of 

 proteids and fat from the body on different days of starvation: 



TABLE II. 



naTr Weight of Body Loss in Oxygen 



Dft y- in Kilos. Flesh. Fat, absorbed. 



2 32.9 341 86 



5 31.7 167 103 358 



8 30.5 138 99 333 



The consumption of fat on the second day, when the decom- 

 position of proteids was considerable, was indeed less than in the 

 following days. The conditions for the destruction of proteids in 

 the animal body seem, as VOIT has suggested, to be different from 

 those for the consumption of fat. 



The constant decrease in the consumption of the adipose tissue 

 and proteids during starvation must also cause a decrease in the 

 extent of the exchange of gas / for instance, a diminished taking 

 up of oxygen and a diminished elimination of carbon dioxide. 

 This is found to be true. In starvation experiments made on a 

 cat, SCHMIDT found that the results for the carbon dioxide and 

 oxygen fell in the course of eighteen days from 50.96 grms. carbon 

 dioxide and 46.20 grms. oxygen on the first day of starvation to 

 22.26 grms. carbon dioxide and 22.12 grms. oxygen on the last day. 

 Investigations on the extent of exchange of gas in human beings in 

 the starving condition were made by LEHMANN and ZUNTZ on 

 CETTI, who only partook of water for ten days. These investi- 

 gators found that the absolute extent of exchange of gas during 

 hunger decreases, but that when the oxygen consumed and the 

 carbon dioxide eliminated were calculated on the unit of the weight 

 of the body 1 kilo its amount quickly sinks to a minimum, but 

 then remains unchanged or may perhaps rise during the course of 

 the fast. They found a consumption of 4.65 c. c. oxygen per 

 minute for 1 kilo during the third to sixth day and 4.73 c. c. during 

 the ninth to eleventh day. It is also a well-known fact that the 

 temperature of the body of starving animals remains tolerably con- 

 stant, without showing a mentionable decrease, during the greater 



