PARTS WHICH LOSE MORE. THAN FORTY PER CENT. PARTS WHICH LOSE LESS THAN FORTY PER CENT.
Fat 23.3 Muscular coat of the stomach 25.7 Blood 75.0 Pharynx and (Esophagus 34.2 Spleen 71.4 Skin 83.3 Pancreas 64.1 Kidneys 31.9 Liver 32.0 Lungs 22.2 Head. 44.8 Bones 16.7 Intestines 42.4 Eyes... 10.0 Muscles of locomotion 42.3 Nervous system 1.9 Hence it appears that there is an almost complete removal of the fat, and a great reduc tion of the blood, while the nervous system is scarcely affected; and hence it would seem as if the supervention of death was coincident with the consumption of all the combustible materials of the body, and that previously the remaining nutritive force was concentrated on the nervous system.
The following are among the most prominent phenomena which Chossat observed either during the experiments or after the death of the animals: 1. Dropsical effusion. 2. Softening and destruction of the mucous membrane. 3. Blackening of the viscera, especially of the liver. 4. Bluish, livid, yellow, and reddish stains during life in the transparent parts of the skin. 5. Hectic fever, and a continuous decrease in the power of the body to resist cold. 6. At first a scanty excretion of dry, bilious, grass-green fteces, and afterward diarrhea of liquid saline matter. 7. Convulsions similar to those in death by hemorrhage. 8. Death by starvation seems to be in reality death by cold; since the temperature of the body is not much diminished until the fat is nearly con sumed, when it rapidly falls, unless it be kept up by heat applied externally. 9. Young animals succumbed far sooner than adults. 10. The results of insufficient food were in the end the saute us those of total deprivation; the total amount of loss being almost the same, but the rate being less, so that a longer time was required to produce it.
Chossat did not find that much influence was exerted on the duration of life by per mitting or withdrawing the supply of water: but there is no doubt that in man, and probably in mammals generally, death supervenes much earlier when liquids as well as solid food are withheld. For a full account of the symptoms of starvation as they occur in the human subject, we must refer the reader to the writings on hygiene and forensic medicine of Orfila, Rostan, Caspar, Taylor, etc.; and especially to Dr. Donovan's account of the Irish famine of 1847, in the Dublin .Medical Feb., 1848, p. 67. The following are the most striking symptoms: In the first place, pain is felt in the stomach, which is relieved on pressure. The countenance becomes pale and cadaverous; the eyes are wild and glistening; the breath hot, the mouth parched, and the saliva thick and scanty. An intolerable thirst supervenes, which, if there be no access to water, becomes the most distressing symptom. The body becomes gradually emaciated, and begins to
exhale a peculiar fcetor, while the skin becomes covered with a brownish dirty-looliing and offensive secretion almost as indelible as varnish, which Donovan at first mistook for encrusted filth. The bodily strength rapidly declines; the sufferer totters in walking, like a drunken man; his voice becomes weak and whining, and lie is ready to burst into tears on the slightest occasion. In the cases recorded by Donovan, imbecility, and sometimes almost complete idiocy, ensued, but in no instance was there delirium or mania, which has been described as a symptom of starvation in cases of shipwreck. On examination after death, the condition of the body is such as might be expected from Chossat's experiments, viz., extreme general emaciation; loss of size and weight of the principal viscera; almost complete bloodlessness, except in the brain; and the gall bladder distended with bile, which tinges the neighboring parts. Moreover, decomposi tion rapidly ensues.
It is impossible to fix the exact time during which life can be supported under entire abstinence from food or drink. Dr. Sloan has given an account of a healthy man, aged 65, who was found alive after having been shut up in a coal mine for 23 days, during the first ten of which he was able to procure a small quantity of foul water. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion, and notwithstanding that he was carefully nursed, he died three days after his rescue. Dr. Willen records the case of a young gentleman who, under the influence of religious delusion, starved himself to death. He survived for sixty days, during which time he took nothing but a little orange juice. In this case, life was probably abnormally prolonged in consequence of the peculiar emotional excitement of the patient. Judging from the cases of abstinence owing to of the throat and impossibility of swallowing, Dr. Taylor infers "that in a healthy person under perfect abstinence, death would not commonly take place in a shorter period than a week or ten days." It is worthy of notice that a deficient supply of food seems to check the elimination and removal of the effete materials of the body. This fact accounts not only for the tendency to putrescence, which is exhibited during the process of starvation, and for the rapidity with which putrefaction ensues after death, but for the pestilential diseases which almost always follow a severe famine; the excess of disintegrated matter in the blood rendering the system especially prone to the reception and multiplication of the diseases characterized as zymotic, such as fever, cholera, etc.