154 



A HISTORY OF 



senses, when they received accidental relief. 

 He assured me, his pains, at first, were so great, 

 as to be often tempted to eat a part of one of 

 the men who died ; and which the rest of his 

 crew actually for some time lived upon : he 

 said, that during the continuance of this pa- 

 roxysm, he found his pains insupportable ; and 

 was desirous, at one time, of anticipating that 

 death which he thought inevitable : but his 

 pains, he said, gradually decreased after the 

 sixth day, (for they had water in the ship, 

 which kept them alive so long,) and then he 

 was in a state rather of languor than desire ; 

 nor did he much wish for food, except when 

 he saw others eating ; and that for a while 

 revived his appetite, though with diminished 

 importunity. The latter part of the time, 

 when his health was almost destroyed, a thou- 

 sand strange images rose upon his mind ; and 

 every one of his senses began to bring him 

 wrong information. The most fragrant per- 

 fumes appeared to him to have a foetid smell; 

 and every thing he looked at took a greenish 

 hue, and sometimes a yellow. When he was 

 presented with food by the ship's company that 

 took him and his men up, four of whom died 

 shortly after, he could not help looking upon 

 it with loathing, instead of desire ; and it was 

 not till after four days, that his stomach was 

 brought to its natural tone, when the violence 

 of his appetite returned, with a sort of canine 

 eagerness. 



Thus dreadful are the effects of hunger ; and 

 yet when we come to assign the cause that 

 produces them, we find the subject involved in 

 doubt and intricacy. This longing eagerness 

 is, no doubt, given for a very obvious purpose ; 

 that of replenishing the body, wasted by fatigue 

 and perspiration. Were not men stimulated 

 by such a pressing monitor, they might be apt 

 to pursue other amusements, with a persever- 

 ance beyond their power; and forget the useful 

 hours of refreshment, in those more tempting 

 ones of pleasure. But hunger makes a demand 

 that will not be refused ; and, indeed, the 

 generality of mankind seldom await the call. 



Hunger has been supposed by some to arise 

 from the rubbing of the coats of the stomach 

 against each other, without having any inter- 

 vening substance to prevent their painful attri- 

 tion. Others have imagined, that its juices, 

 wanting their necessary supply, turn acrid, or, 

 as some say, pungent ; and thus fret its internal 



coats, so as to produce a train of the most 

 uneasy sensations. Boerhaave, who establish- 

 ed his reputation in physic, by uniting the 

 conjectures of all thoae that preceded him, 

 ascribes hunger to the united effect of both 

 these causes; and asserts, that the pungency 

 of the gastric juices, and the attrition of its 

 coats against each other, cause those pains, 

 which nothing but food can remove. These 

 juices continuing still to be separated in the 

 stomach, and every moment becoming more 

 acrid, mix with the blood, and infect the cir- 

 culation : the circulation being thus contami- 

 nated, becomes weaker, and more contracted ; 

 and the whole nervous frame sympathizing, an 

 hectic fever, and sometimes madness, is pro- 

 duced ; in which state the faint wretch expires. 

 In this manner, the man who dies of hunger, 

 may be said to be poisoned by the juices of his 

 own body ; and is destroyed less by the want of 

 nourishment, than by the vitiated qualities of 

 that which he had already taken. 



However this may be, we have but few in- 

 stances of men dying, except at sea, of abso- 

 lute hunger. The decline of those unhappy 

 creatures who are destitute of food, at land, 

 bt-ing more slow and unperceived. These, 

 from often being in need, and as often receiv- 

 ing an accidental supply, pass their lives be- 

 tween surfeiting and repining ; and UK ir con- 

 stitution is impaired by insensible degrees. 

 Man is unfit for a state of precarious expecta- 

 tion. That share of provident precaution 

 which incites him to lay up stores for a distant 

 day, becomes his torment, when totally unpro- 

 vided against an immediate call. The lower 

 race of animals, when satisfied, for the instant 

 moment, are perfectly happy : but it is other- 

 wise with man ; his mind anticipates distress, 

 and feels the pangs of want even before it ar- 

 rests him. Thus the mind being continually 

 harassed by the situation, it at length influen- 

 ces the constitution, and unfits it for all its func- 

 tions. Some cruel disorder, but no way like 

 hunger, seizes the unhappy sufferer ; so that 

 almost all those men who have thus long lived 

 by chance, and whose every day may be con- 

 sidered as an happy escape from famine, are 

 known at last to die in reality of a disorder 

 caused by hunger ; but which, in the common 

 language, is often called a broken heart. Some 

 of these I have known myself, when very lit- 

 tle able to relieve them : and I have been told, 



