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ON NUTRITION BY BLOOD IN STARVATION. 
By M. Auselmier, 
Experimental researches made on animals subjected to 
a more or less absolute privation of food have shown that life 
may be maintained for a certain period at the expense of the 
substance of the organs, as is proved by the progressive 
diminution of the weight of the animal suffering from inanition. 
This mode of nutrition has long been termed autophagy ; and 
M. Auselmier wishes to designate it as spontaneous autophagy, 
as a contrast to the term artificial autophagy, which he employs 
when the animal subjected to inanition is submitted to daily 
small bleedings, and his blood given him as aliment. He 
has made a great number of comparative experiments upon 
two groups of animals, resembling each other in every cir¬ 
cumstance as far as possible—one group being abandoned to 
the effects of inanition, and the other exclusively fed with the 
blood drawn from the veins of the animals experimented upon. 
The following are the results deducible: 
1. The absolute privation of food diminishes the production 
of caloric in all warm-blooded animals. This diminution is 
nearly uniform during three fourths of the duration of vital 
existance, that is, about 0 *2 C in every twenty-four hours. 
During the last fourth of the time it decreases very rapidly, 
and death occurs between the 23 and 24° C. 2. A relative 
privation of aliment causes a less rapid diminution of the 
production of caloric, proportionately to the rations. 3. In 
all animals of warm blood the temperature of the blood cannot 
descend below 26° C., without death being the consequence. 
4. Death from starvation is the result of an arrest of nutrition 
produced by the progressive diminution of the temperature of 
the animal—the production and accumulation of a certain 
quantum of caloric being one of the conditions of nutrition in 
all animals of this class. 5. Death by starvation would not 
be the result of the consumption of all the materials which 
the organism can supply, if we could change the condition of 
cooling which is the consequence of inanition. In fact in the 
animals who have succumbed from absolute abstinence, the 
emaciation is on the average four tenths of the initial weight, 
while in relative abstinence it may attain six tenths. 6. The 
diminution of calorification arises from the inactivity of the 
gastro-intestinal absorbent system, the temperature of the 
animal increasing or diminishing according to the degree of 
the activity of this function, just as the latter is modified by 
