starvation of vegetable and animal tissues. 75 
affected elements the possibility of recovery remains ; but when 
they have absolutely broken up, or where they are converted 
into mere aggregations of dead matter, it is clear that restoration 
of the tissue of which they form a constituent can only be 
effected by the formation of new elements. 
It is also clear that the amount of transformation of tissue 
taking place in the organism is not of necessity directly indicated 
by the mere chemical determination of the amount and nature of 
the materials leaviug the body in the various excretions, for the 
products of transformation need not necessarily pass off, but 
may accumulate in large quantities, as in the case of the pig- 
mentary and fatty deposits occurring in the intestinal tissue as 
recorded above. 
The experiments which were conducted with larvm of Rana 
tigrina showed that in these also the destructive effects of 
starvation were specially centred on the intestinal canal, and that 
the changes in the tissues of the mucous membrane were essen- 
tially similar to those just described. 
In so far as the present experiments afford any information on 
the subject the changes effected by starvation in animal and 
vegetable tissues are fundamentally the same, and the variations 
presented by the phenomena attending the process in individual 
cases are mainly dependent on variations in the amount and 
character of the formed material present. Where this is small 
the effects of destruction and removal of the protoplasmic con- 
stituents are rendered rapidly • conspicuous, but where it is 
present in large amount and is of a resistant nature the occur- 
rence of change is to a great extent masked, and large portions 
of tissue which, in so far as active function is concerned, have 
in great measure ceased to serve any purpose in the organism, 
may, to outward appearance, remain almost unaffected. 
III. — The Conclusions drawn from a comparison of the data 
acquired from the Autopsies of persons who have died through 
want with those obtained by Experiment, 
After a detailed description of the post-mortem lesions ob- 
served by the author in the relief camps of the famine districts 
of Madras, which went to show that the general result of the 
entire series of observations was that the disease conditions 
under investigation were specially characterised by extreme 
general anaemia and destructive processes affecting the mucous 
membrane of the intestinal canal, the report is brought to a 
conclusion as follows: — We have now to consider what the 
phenomena observed in the post-mortem examinations of cases 
