STARVATION. 



203 



stance named legumen, which is obtained especially from peas, 

 beans, and other seeds of leguminous plants, and from the 

 potato, is identical with the casein of milk. All these vegeta- 

 ble substances are, equally with the corresponding animal 

 principles, and in the same manner, capable of conversion into 

 blood and tissue ; and as the blood and tissues in beth classes 

 of animals are alike, so also the nitrogenous food of both may 

 be regarded as, in essential respects, similar. 



It is in the relative quantities of the nitrogenous and non- 

 nitrogenous compounds in these different foods that the differ- 

 ence lies, rather than in the presence of substances in one of 

 them which do not exist in the other. The only non-nitro- 

 genous compounds in ordinary animal food are the fat, the 

 saline matters, and water, and, in some instances, the vegeta- 

 ble matters which may chance to be in the digestive canals of 

 such animals as are eaten whole. The amount of these, how- 

 ever, is altogether much less than that of the non-nitrogenous 

 substances represented by the starch, sugar, gum, oil, &c., in 

 the vegetable food of herbivorous animals. 



The effects of total deprivation of food have been made the 

 subject of experiments on the lower animals, and have been 

 but too frequently illustrated in man. 



(1.) One of the most notable effects of starvation, as might 

 be expected, is loss of weight ; the loss being greatest at first, 

 as a rule, but afterwards not varying very much, day by day, 

 until death ensues. Chossat found that the ultimate propor- 

 tional loss was, in different animals experimented on, almost 

 exactly the same ; death occurring when the body had lost 

 two-fifths (forty per cent.) of its original weight. 



Different parts of the body lose weight in very different pro- 

 portions. The following results are taken, in round numbers, 

 from the table given by M. Chossat : 



Fat loses 



Blood, . 



Spleen, 



Pancreas, 



Liver, . 



Heart, . 



Intestines, 



Muscles of locomotion, 



Stomach loees, 



Pharynx, (Esophagus, 



Skin, . 



Kidneys, 



Respiratory apparatus, 



Bones, . 



Eyes, . 



Nervous system. . 



93 per cent. 



75 



71 



64 



52 



44 



42 



42 



39 



3t 



31 

 22 

 16 

 10 

 2 



(nearly). 



