FOWLS FED ON PUTRID MEAT. 
343 
the temperature at which it effects its operation. 7< If we 
draw from animals subjected to inanition a certain amount of 
blood, and give it them as an aliment, we find the production 
of caloric continues, together with the gastro-intestinal activity, 
the daily loss of temperature being less considerable, and the 
emaciation becoming more complete, so that it may attain 
six tenths of the initial weight. 8. The bleedings and the 
rations which they supply should be diminished in quantity 
in proportion to the prolongation of the experiment; and 
digestion takes place more completely and more rapidly in 
proportion to such prolongation. In proportion to the fre¬ 
quency of the bleedings, the exhaustion of the organism, the 
nervous irritation, the diminution of the gastro-intestinal 
secretions essential to digestion, the monotony of the aliment, 
the diminution of the temperature, and the putrefactive con¬ 
dition of the aliment, the prolongation of this mode of nutrition 
becomes impossible. 9. The gastro-intestinal activity is in¬ 
dicated by the return of the excretions, the elevation and 
generalization of the temperature and pulse, an increase of 
muscular force, and the diminution of nervous phenomena, 
and of the sensations of hunger and thirst. 10. The calori¬ 
fication does not decrease more than a mean ofO°*l C. in the 
twenty-four hours. 11. Artificial autophagy allows of ex¬ 
cessive emaciation, i. e. allows of it being carried to six tenths 
in fat subjects, five tenths in medium subjects, and four 
tenths in the young; while the author’s and Chossat’s ex¬ 
periments show that in spontaneous autophagy it attains only 
five tenths in the fat, four tenths in the medium, and two 
tenths in the young. 12. Artificial autophagy thus con¬ 
siderably prolongs life, viz. for nearly one half more than its 
duration in spontaneous autophagy. The application of the 
author’s views may be made in the case of shipwrecked 
persons, or others subjected to the horrors of starvation.— 
Ganvptes Bendus, 
ARE FOWLS WHOLESOME WHICH ARE FED ON PUTRID 
MEAT ? 
Such is the question considered by Dr. Duchesne, in the 
January number for 1859 of the Annales d’Hygiene Puhlique. 
It is well known that man cannot indulge in putrid meat 
with impunity, and numerous cases are on record where acci¬ 
dents have occurred from this kind of food. Little is known^ 
