842 METABOLISM. 



this is absolute inanition. The food may also be qualitatively insufficient 

 or, as we say, inadequate. This occurs when any of the necessary nutri- 

 tive bodies are absent in the food, while the others occur in sufficient or 

 perhaps even in excessive amounts. 



Lack of water in the food. The quantity of water in the organism is 

 greatest during foetal life and then decreases with increasing age. Nat- 

 urally, the quantity differs essentially in different organs. The enamel, 

 with only 2 p. m. water, is the tissue poorest in water while the teeth 

 contain about 100 p. m. and the fatty tissue 60-120 p. m. water. The 

 bones, with 140-440 p. m., and the cartilage with 540-740 p. m. are 

 somewhat richer in water, while the muscles, blood and glands, with 750 

 to more than 800 p. m., are still richer. The quantity of water is even 

 greater in the animal fluids (see preceding chapter), and the adult body 

 contains in all about 630 p. m. water. 1 It follows from what has been 

 given in Chapter I in regard to the great importance of water for living 

 processes, that, if the loss of water is not replaced by fresh supply, the 

 organism must succumb sooner or later. Death occurs indeed sooner from 

 lack of water than from complete inanition (LANDAUER, NOTHWANG). 



If water is withdrawn for a certain time, as LANDAUER and espe- 

 cially STRAUB have shown, it has an accelerating influence upon the 

 decomposition of protein. This increased destruction has, according to 

 LANDAUER, the purpose of replacing a part of the water removed, by the 

 production of water by means of the increased metabolism. The depriva- 

 tion of water for a short time may, according to SriEGLER, 2 especially in 

 man, cause a diminution in the protein metabolism by means of a reduced 

 protein absorption. 



Lack of Mineral Substances in the Food. In the previous chapters 

 attention has repeatedly been called to the importance of the mineral 

 bodies and also to the occurrence of certain mineral substances in certain 

 amounts in the various organs. The mineral content of the tissues and 

 fluids is not very great as a rule. With the exception of the skeleton, 

 which contains as average about 220 p. m. mineral bodies (VoLKMANN 3 ), 

 the animal fluids or tissues are poor in inorganic constituents, and the 

 quantity of these, amounts, as a rule, only to about 10 p. m. Of the total 

 quantity of mineral substances in the organism, the greatest part occurs 

 in the skeleton, 830 p. m., and the next greatest in the muscles, about 100 

 p. m. (VOLKMANN). 



The mineral bodies seem to be partly dissolved in the fluids and partly 

 combined with organic substances, but nothing definite can be given as 



1 See Voit, in Hermann's Handbuch, 6, part 1, 345. 



2 Landauer, Maly's Jahresber., 24; Nothwang, Arch. f. Hyg., 1892; Straub, Zeitschr. 

 f. Biol., 37 and 38; Spiegler, ibid., 41. 



3 See Hermann's Handbuch., 6, pt. 1. 353. 



