220 THE HUMAN MOTOR 



157. Fasting and Inanition. The insufficiency of the quantity 

 of food, the state of fasting itself, does not reduce the expenditure 

 in 24 hours appreciably, the reduction being 5% to 6% the first 

 day, according to Atwater's measurements, after which the value 

 tends to become constant. Thus the organism shows a certain 

 independence in regard to the amount of food taken. But the 

 general forces diminish progressively. The contraction of the 

 muscles is retarded, and they become tired without having done 

 any work.f 1 ) 



In a state of inanition, it is especially the muscles which suffer, 

 and lose their power. The intellectual faculties resist, because 

 the nervous substance is the least tried. Thus determinations 

 made on a pigeon, a cat, and a dog gave a very significant per- 

 centage of utilisation, at the end of a long fasts. 



Skeleton 21% to 19% 



Muscles 42% 70% 



Heart 45% 55% 



Spleen 71% 75% 



Pancreas 64% 39% 



Lungs . 22% 30% 



Brain and spinal 



column 2 (Chossat) ( 2 ) 1-1 (Seldmair) (*) 



Clearly this shows that the organs which sustain physical life 

 are more affected than those which support intellectual life. 



An inanitiated subject regains his weight more quickly by 

 absorbing ternary substances rather than proteids, provided that 

 the latter are in the proportion of 2 grammes per kilogramme of 

 weight. For example, after fasts of forty hours at a time, a man 

 weighing 54 kilogrammes who produced 36,089 kgm. = 85 

 Calories of work on the bicycle dynamometer in four hours, was 

 given regularly a ration of 2,600 Calories comprising 1,750 Calories 

 of carbo-hydrates. The results were as follows : 



Cal. Cal. Cal. 



Proteids 93 652 330 Averages 



Fats 750 191 513 I of several 



Gain of weight 433 gr. 707 gr. 1,218 gr J yS * 



The fats assure the conservation of the weight of the body 

 better than the proteids, but carbo-hydrates are even better. ( 4 ) 



The effect of an insufficiency of aliments is more apparent in 

 children than in adults, because of the greater speed of growth 

 in the former ( 99). 



( x ) Gaglio (Arch. p. Les Sc. Mid., vol. xvii., p. 301, 1884). 

 ( 2 ) .Chossat (Mtm. Acad. Sc. vol. viii., p. 438, 1843). 

 (*) Seldmair (Zeitsch. f. Biol. vol. xxxvii., p. 41, 1899). 

 (*) Jules Amar, Le Rendement, pp. 79-82. 



