METABOLISM IN STARVATION. 893 



of the unit of the weight of the body, namely, 1 kilo is, on the contrary, 

 greater in small animals than in larger ones. The reason for this is that 

 the smaller animals have a greater surface of body in proportion to their 

 mass than larger animals, and the greater loss of heat caused thereby 

 must be replaced by a more active consumption of material. 



It follows from the decrease in the weight of the body that the absolute 

 extent of metabolism must diminish in starvation. If, on the contrary, 

 the extent of metabolism is referred to the unit of weight of the body, 

 namely, 1 kilo, it appears that this quantity remains almost un- 

 changed during starvation. The investigations of ZUNTZ, LEHMANN, 

 and others, 1 on the professional faster CETTI, showed on the third and 

 sixth days of starvation an average consumption of 4.65 cc. oxygen per 

 kilo in one minute, and on the ninth to eleventh day an average of 4.73 

 cc. The calories, as a measure of the metabolism, fell on the first to 

 fifth day of starvation from 1850 to 1600 calories, or from 32.4 to 30 per 

 kilo, and it remained nearly unchanged, if referred to the unit of body 

 weight. 2 In man the average daily energy consumption in starvation 

 amounts to about 30-32 calories per kilo. 



The extent of the metabolism of proteins, or the elimination of nitrogen 

 by the urine, which is a measure of the same, diminishes as the weight 

 of the body diminishes. This decrease is not regular or the same during 

 the entire period of starvation, and the extent depends, as the experi- 

 ments made upon carnivora have shown, upon several circumstances. 

 During the first few days of starvation the excretion of nitrogen is greatest, 

 and the richer the body is in protein, due to the food previously taken, 

 the greater is the protein catabolism or the nitrogen elimination, accord- 

 ing to VOIT. The nitrogen elimination diminishes the more rapidly 

 that is, the curve of the decrease is more sudden the richer in proteins 

 the food was which was taken before starvation. This condition is 

 apparent from the following table of data of three different starvation 

 experiments made by VoiT 3 on the same dog. This dog received 2500 

 grams of meat daily before the first series of experiments, 1500 grams of 

 meat daily before the second series, and a mixed diet relatively poor in 

 nitrogen before the third series. 



1 Berlin, klin. Wochenschr., 1887. 



2 See also Tigerstedt and collaborators in Skand. Arch. f. Physiol., 7. 



3 See Hermann's Handbuch, 6, Thl. 1, 89. 



