EFFECTS OF STARVATION. 25 



equal in volume to the carbonic acid expired. Exact 

 experiments have shown, that in many cases only half 

 the volume of oxygen is expired in the form of carbonic 

 acid. These observations cannot be gainsaid, and are 

 far more convincing than those arbitrary and artificially 

 produced phenomena, sometimes called experiments ; 

 experiments which, made as too often they are, without 

 regard to the necessary and natural conditions, possess 

 no value, and may be entirely dispensed with ; especial- 

 ly when, as in the present case, nature affords the op- 

 portunity for observation, and when we make a rational 

 use of that opportunity. 



In the progress of starvation, however, it is not only 

 the fat which disappears, but also, by degrees, all such 

 of the solids as are capable of being dissolved. In the 

 wasted bodies of those who have suffered starvation, 

 the muscles are shrunk and unnaturally soft, and hav& 

 lost their contractility ; all those parts of the body 

 which were capable of entering into the state of motion 

 have served to protect the remainder of the frame from 

 the destructive influence of the atmosphere. Towards 

 the end, the particles of the brain begin to undergo the 

 process of oxidation, and delirium, mania, and death 

 close the scene ; that is to say, all resistance to the 

 oxidizing power of the atmospheric oxygen ceases, and 

 the chemical process of eremacausis, or decay, com- 

 mences, in which every part of the body, the bones 

 excepted, enters into combination with oxygen. 



The time which is required to cause death by starva- 

 tion depends on the amount of fat in the body, on the 

 3 



