56 STUDIES IN DIGESTION 



been kept alive on nutrients for several weeks, but it 

 is well known that there are sometimes sudden and 

 unaccountable deaths. It must not be forgotten 

 that if water is supplied life will usually be prolonged 

 for a month with no food at all, and in one instance 

 a man was alive after sixty-four days of complete 

 starvation. If water also is withheld, death takes 

 place in about a week ; but a girl buried in an Italian 

 earthquake lived eleven days without either food 

 or drink. 



Public opinion in England may not yet be ripe 

 enough to allow us to practise sheer starvation for 

 gastric ulcer, but if we cannot feed a patient, at least 

 we can disturb his peace as little as possible by nearly 

 useless enemata. 



REFERENCES. 



PAWLOW. " The Work of the Digestive Glands." Trans- 

 lated by W. H. Thompson. 2nd Edition. Griffin & Co., 

 1910. 



STALLING. " Recent Advances in the Physiology of Diges- 

 tion." London, 1906. (Gives an excellent list of 

 authorities.) 



EDKINS. Journ. of Physiol., vol. xxxiv., 1906, p. 133 ; 

 xxxviii., 1908, p. 263. 



LANGDON BROWN. " Physiological Principles in Treatment." 

 2nd Edition. London, 1910. 



SOLTAU FENWICK. Proc. Royal Soc. Med. ; Surgical Section : 

 1910, p. 177. 



PATERSON. Ibid., p. 187. 



CANNON. Amer. Jour, of Physiology, 1902, vi., p. 253. 



GRAY. Lancet, 1908, (i), p. 549 ; (ii), p. 224. 



WILLCOX. Lancet, 1905, (i), p. 1566 ; 1908, (ii), p. 220. 



WALTON. Ibid., 1908, (ii), pp. 17, 85. 



GROVES. " Transac. Royal Soc. Medicine," vol. ii., 1909, 

 part iii.. Surgical Section, p. 121. 



