Disturbances of Nutrition. 37 



a year, snakes for six months and frogs for nine months, taking 

 nothing but water. 



When fasting an animal must furnish whatever energy is 

 necessary for the maintenance of its proper temperature and for 

 its organic functions (muscular activity and circulation) by the 

 destruction of its body tissues, nourishment from external sources 

 being impossible or insufficient. How the destruction of tissues, 

 an actual self-combustion, takes place and how the vital organs 

 live upon the less important structures, is well shown by the com- 

 prehensive studies of E. Voit. Fat and glycogen are first sacri- 

 ficed, and as long as these substances are present the albuminous 

 elements are not subject to the destructive process, the muscular 

 structures afterwards bearing the greatest part of the loss. Loss of 

 weight and atrophy are most marked in the omentum and the 

 fleshy parts (also the fat and glycogen stored in the liver), and 

 fat animals succumb to starvation later than lean ones Accord- 

 ing to Chossat, young, poorly nourished pigeons die after three 

 days with a loss of one-third their body-weight ; plump ones after 

 thirteen days, with a loss of half their weight. The heart shows 

 the least loss in weight (its constant activity and functional stimu- 

 lation hindering its atrophy) ; the central nervous system similarly 

 loses but little, and the diminution in the red corpuscles is com- 

 paratively unimportant. (Lipomata are unaffected in starvation; 

 attempts to cause their removal by starvation have been un- 

 successful. — Samuel.) Death from starvation takes place after 

 the development of great muscular weakness, with complete loss 

 of power and deep stupor (Samuel). In the bodies of animals 

 dead from this cause are to be noted muscular and glandular 

 atrophy, passive congestion and degenerative changes, together 

 with scanty contents of the small intestine and diminished lumen 

 of the latter. 



Complete inhibition of water (as in feeding with material arti- 

 ficially deprived of its water) acts quite as effectively as hunger, 

 death taking place in from eight to twelve days. Animals, un- 

 able to quench their thirst, refuse food, and the organism is unable 

 to adequately supply the fluid secretions necessary for digestion. 

 Death probably is due to the retention in the system of injurious 

 metabolic products (with poisonous qualities), which cannot be 

 flushed out. Actual drinking of water may very well be avoided 

 by a number of animals (rabbits, guinea-pigs, cats or parrots) 

 without injury to health, provided the food ingested contain water. 



