Fasting, or deprivation of food, is, in a physiological sense, a state inconsistent with the continuance of life in most warm-blooded animals more than a few weeks. If water is not supplied, the period is much shorter, being in man commonly not more than a very few days, or at most a week. Persons have been found in coal-pits and mines, and in other situations where access to food has been impossible, but where water could be had, as long as six weeks after their seclusion, still alive, though of course in a very feeble condition; and a very small daily allowance of food has supported life longer than this, as in some cases of shipwreck, and other accidents at sea. Cases of alleged fasting, longer than this, as in the notorious woman of Tutbury, are certainly in most instances due to imposture. The insane would appear, in some instances, to bear fast ing better than the healthy. Hibernating animals (see HIBERNATION) are capable of sustaining the want of- food for an apparently indefinite period of weeks during the winter sleep; but no warm-blooded animal can endure fasting in anything like the same degree as the reptiles, in many of which, indeed, the natural state of existence is one of long intervals between the times of taking food, and in which the vital change of texture is remarkably slow. Thus, the remarkable amphibious animal, the Proteus
anguinus, has been known to live for years without food, and the same is true of sala manders, tortoises, and even goldfishes. In fasting, the body gradually emaciates, most of the secretions are arrested, or greatly diminished, and at last the animal heat falls rapidly in all parts of the body. In attempting the recovery of persons reduced by fasting, food must be given m very small quantities at a time, and of the most nourishing and digestible quality; stimulants should be either withheld, or very cau tiously administered. The most important point, next to the regulation of the food, and sometimes even before food is given at all, is the removal of the torpor and chill of the body by gradually applied heat, with friction of the limbs. See Tiedemann's Phy siology; Burdach's Physiology; Chossat, Recherches sur Inanition.