284 



Major W. B. Cannon. 



days, and many die within 36 hours. An exceptional instance has heen 

 reported, of a Mexican, who, lost in the dry plains of the south-western part 

 of the United States, walked, or crept on his hands and knees, between 100 

 and 150 miles, repeatedly drinking his own excretions, and succeeded, after 

 nearly 7 days wholly without water, in reaching a habitation.* This is a 

 record which, for its conditions, has no parallel. If the thirsting man is not 

 subjected to heat or exertion his life may continue much longer than 7 days. 

 Viterbi, an Italian political prisoner, who committed suicide by refusing food 

 and drink, died on the eighteenth day of his voluntary privation. After the 

 third day the pangs of hunger ceased, but, until almost the last, thirst was 

 always more insistent and tormenting. He records again and again his 

 parched mouth and throat, his burning thirst, his ardent and continual thirst,his 

 thirst constant and ever more intolerable.f Thus though the period of survival 

 varies, death is sure to come whether food, or oxygen, or water is withheld. 



Normally these three supplies— food, oxygen, and water — are maintained 

 in more or less constant adjustment to the bodily needs. Food material is 

 being continually utilised in building body structure, and in providing 

 energy for bodily activities, but it is periodically restored. Oxygen is con- 

 tinually combining with carbon and hydrogen and leaving the body in CO2 

 and H2O, but the loss is compensated for with every breath. And water, 

 likewise, is always being discharged in expired air, in secretion from the 

 kidneys, and in the sweat. So great is the escape by way of the lungs and 

 skin alone that it is estimated that approximately 25 per cent, of the heat 

 loss from the body is due to evaporation from these surfaces.J This con- 

 tinuous lessening of tht water content must be checked by a new supply, or 

 important functions will begin to show signs of need. 



The evidence for the absolute necessity of water in our physiological pro- 

 cesses requires no elaboration. Water is a universal and essential ingredient 

 of all forms of organisms. Without it life disappears or is latent — the 

 dry seed awakens only on becoming moist. Because we may have it at 

 almost any moment we are likely to overlook its absolute necessity in oui- 

 lives. Among inhabitants of desert regions, however, water is the central 

 nucleus of thought about which all other ideas revolve ; it is an ultimate 

 standard of things, incomparably more stable and more exalted than the gold 

 of civilised commerce, the constantly remembered basis of existence.§ In 



* McGee, ' Interstate Med. Jour.,' vol. 13, p. 279 (1906). 



t Viterbi, quoted by Bardier, Eichet's ' Dictionnaire de Physiologie,' article " Faim," 

 vol. 6, p. 7 (1904). 



% Gephart and Du Bois, ' Arch. Int. Med.,' vol. 17, p. 902 (1916). 



§ McGee, " The Seri Indians," ' 17th Annual Report of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology,' p. 181. 



