54? STARVATION. 



of hunger ceases in a few days 11 , probably from relaxation of the 

 stomach through debility. But when hunger has ceased, though 

 no food has been taken, weakness and sinking at the pit of the 

 stomach are still felt. 



Life may be supported for a certain time by nutriment intro- 

 duced into the intestines. I lately attended a lady who, through 

 obstruction of the oesophagus, attended by suppuration, did not 

 swallow a particle of solid or fluid for six weeks, at the end of 

 which she died. Three injections of milk, eggs, and wine, were 

 employed daily. She passed a feculent soft evacuation in every 

 twenty-four hours, and never felt the sensation of hunger. 



A poor diet, even of vegetable matter, sometimes gives rise to 

 symptoms of scurvy * ; and famine is soon attended by epidemic 

 fever. 



The torment of thirst increases until drink is procured or mois- 

 ture applied to the surface or inhaled : inflammation of the mouth 

 and throat, and intense fever, at length erisue. k 



If abstinence is not forced upon the system, but is absolutely a 

 part of disease, it may, like suspension of respiration in morbid 

 states of insensibility ! , and like immense doses of powerful medi- 



h Among many other accounts of starvation, some of these facts may be seen in 

 Captain Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 465. sq. 427. 

 London, 1823 j where the dreadful force of hunger is too truly illustrated. Our 

 countrymen devoured their old shoes, and any scraps of leather they possessed, 

 (pp. 418. 429. 438. 479.). The putrid spinal marrow left in bones, picked clean 

 by wolves and birds of prey, was esteemed a prize, though its acrimony excoriated 

 the lips ; the bones were also eaten up after being burnt (p. 426.) ; great part of 

 a putrid deer was devoured on the spot (p. 421.) ; and to destroy, skin, and cut 

 up a cow, was the work of a few minutes, after which the contents of the stomach 

 and the raw intestines were at once devoured and thought excellent, (p. 407.) 

 In the siege of Jerusalem and other ancient cities, we read of women driven by 

 hunger to devour their offspring ; and Captain Franklin was assured, near the 

 Saskatchawan, that men and women were then living, who had destroyed and 

 fed upon the bodies of their own families, to prevent starvation in very severe 

 seasons, (p. 51.) 



1 See Sir George Baker's account of two women, in the Transact, of the College 

 of Physicians, vol. ii. 



k A horrid description of raging thirst will be found in the account of the 

 black-hole of Calcutta. See Annual Register, 1758. 



1 An example of the impunity with which a long exclusion of air may be borne, 

 when the system is in a morbid nervous state, may appear to advantage by the side 

 of similar illustrations of the deprivation of food. " The story of Ann Green," 

 says the Rev. Mr. Derham, " executed at Oxford, Dec. 14. 1650, is still well 



