38 Causes of Disease. 



Diminution in the amount of food ingested, undernutrition 

 (relative or incomplete inanition), is often met with in connection 

 with diseases of the alimentary tract; its consequences are pre- 

 cisely similar to those of total withdrawal of food, save that the 

 progression of the case is slow^er. Usually the condition is ac- 

 companied by a diminution of erythrocytes in the blood (inanition 

 ancemia), tlie alimentary disease producing wide disturbance 

 through fluid-waste (diarrhoea) and other complications. 



Faulty composition of food causes partial starvation, the body 

 suffering loss in its fat, albumen or carbohydrate should its nour- 

 ishment lack or contain but an insufficient amount of one of these 

 substances, or should the animal by preference and exclusively feed 

 upon only one of these types of nutritive material. Impoverish- 

 ment of the diet in such manner brings about emaciation and 

 physical weakness. If lime should be deficient in the food and 

 water supply the skeleton will fail of its most essential constituent, 

 that which gives it its rigid strength, and the bones become soft. 



Respiratory Faults. 



All animals die by asphyxia* if their supply of oxygen be 

 prevented. A wide range of factors may bring about a diminu- 

 tion in the proportion of oxygen contained by the blood, asso- 

 ciated as a rule with insufiicient separation of the carbonic acid 

 and its consequent high proportion in the blood. Primarily this 

 may result from the insufficient access of atmospheric air to the 

 respiratory organs, as by closure of the superior orifices \ smoth- 

 ering] or by obstruction of the respiratory tube [choking] 

 and constriction of the latter {strangulation, compression of 

 the larynx or trachea) by fluids and foreign bodies (the latter 

 also by lodging in the pharynx and occluding the trachea), pres- 

 sure upon the larynx and trachea by tumors, obstruction by 

 tumors or swelling of the mucous membrane in the folds of the 

 glottis or in the bronchial tubes, collections of blood, fluid or 

 coagulated exudates in the lungs and bronchi, 



A second group of asphyxiating causes includes interference 



♦The editor is here taking the liberty of using the word asphyxia as the 

 general term, including smotherinfi as meaning respiratory obstructiun, operative at 

 the respiratory orifices, mouth and nose- : clinking, respiratory obstruction operative 

 within the mouth, nasopharynx or oesophagus (pressing on the larynx or trachea) ; 

 strangulation, respiratory obstruction by constriction or pressure from without 

 upon the larynx or throat generally ; suffocation, respiratory obstruction by any 

 type of cause operative below the level of the larynx, either within (as a suf- 

 focative gas) or without (as pressure upon the chest). In English this meaning 

 is attached to asphyxia, although as Prof. Kitt indicates In the present section 

 it really means pulseless; his own general terra is "Ersti-ckung." 



