STARVATION, or INANITION, low ered vitality, accompanied by emaciation, en feeblement which if prolonged results in death, through lack' of food. Starve is derived from Old English steorfan, to die. The phenomena of starvation presents subjects of great interest from their bearing upon phenomena induced through the inability to take nourishment oc casioned by some diseases. According to Chos sat, the symptoms which intervene in starva tion are at first marked by a very rapid di minution in the weight of the body; this de crease, however, becoming more gradual as death approaches. A striking uniformity is found between the period at which death re sults from starvation and the loss of weight experienced. Thus Chossat found that in dif ferent warm-blooded animals death resulted when the body had lost about 40 per cent or two-fifths of its original and normal weight. Great variations undoubtedly existed in the extremes of Chossat's cases; the circumstances which seem most powerfully to have affected these results being the amount of fat con tained in the body prior to the beginning of the starvation period. The animals which had most fat stored up lost weight quickest and at the same time lived longest. Chossat found that in animals undergoing starvation the symp toms observed during the first half or two thirds of the period are those of calmness and quietness; the temperature then becoming ele vated, restlessness and agitation prevails; and when life is terminated by the rapid fall of the temperature stupor supervenes. The ex tremities become cold and weak, and are finally unable to support the weight of the body; while the pupils of the eyes become dilated; and occasionally at death convulsive twitchings may be present. The excreta are small in quantity after those which are voided as the result of the food last partaken of, and con sist chiefly of greenish matters, probably de rived from the biliary secretions. At death the faeces become watery and contain saline matters.
The fatty matters are almost entirely re moved by starvation, and the blood loses three fourths of its original amount. It is probable that the total nutritive powers of the body during starvation go to nourish the nervous tissues, the loss of which is very small ; while the true mode of death from starvation ap pears to be death from want of heat, the body being preserved alive, notwithstanding the want of fresh nutritive material, by the combustion or absorption of the fatty matters it contains. Chossat also found that proportionally to the more active nutrition and waste in young animals, such died sooner from starvation than older forms; and he also determined the equally important fact that if young animals especially are supplied with an insufficient amount of food, they succumb as if they were actually starved; the process of starvation being of necessity more gradual in the latter instance.
The mere variations in the temperature ob served by Chossat formed more prominent points of note in his observations than the actual decrease of heat. It fluctuated or varied daily, in some cases, some 5° and 6° F., instead of 1° and 2° F., as observed in the normal and healthy state of the body. In the human sub ject the symptoms of starvation have been closely studied by physiologists, with the effect of determining a stated order in their ap pearance and effects. The preliminary hun ger appears to be accompanied in the first instance by severe pain in the stomach and epigastric region generally. The thirst be comes intense and although undoubtedly in man the want of water induces death at a much earlier period than where drink is at tainable by lower forms (for example, birds), the want of water may in reality make com paratively little difference in the invasion of the fatal period. Sleeplessness appears to be early manifested; the severe pain at first felt in the stomach gradually ceasing. A charac teristic feeling of sinking and weakness is de scribed as occurring in the epigastric region, the thirst still continuing to an agonizing de gree. The face assumes meanwhile an anx ious, pale expression; the eyes are wild and staring; and the whole countenance and body participate in rapid general emaciation. The body latterly exhales a fetid odor; the breath and lung secretions become strong-smelling; and the skin is said to become covered with a brown secretion — these results, doubtless, arising from the decomposition and organic decay of the tissues. The gait totters, the mind becomes impaired, delirium or convul sions may ensue and death occurs, with or with out the accompaniment of diarrhoea. Post mortem reveals a state of anaemia in all parts of the body but the brain, which appears to the last to receive a due supply of blood. The fat is entirely wanting and the various organs and tissues have greatly lost in hulk. The coats of the small intestine are found exceedingly thin. The gall-bladder generally contains much bile, and the body goes more rapidly to decay than after death from ordinary causes.