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892 METABOLISM.
calorific value of the organic foodstuffs, also for the carbon of the carbon dioxide,
and for the oxygen. Thus for 1 gram of meat (dry substance) free from fat
and extractives we have the calculated value of 5.44-5.77 calories. Kohler x
found 5.678 calories for 1 gram of ash and fat-free dried-meat substance of the
ox and 5.599 calories for horse meat. According to Frentzel and Schreuer 2
45.4 calories is calculated for 1 gram of nitrogen in fat and ash-free dried-meat
feces (dog), while 6.97 to 7.45 calories is calculated for 1 gram of nitrogen in meat-
urine. The calorific urine quotient —^— seems still, as above given, not to be
constant for human beings, but is dependent upon the variety of food.
H. METABOLISM IN STARVATION AND WITH INSUFFICIENT NUTRITION.
In starvation the decomposition in the body continues uninterruptedly,
though with decreased intensity; but, as it takes place at the expense of
the substance of the body, it can continue for a limited time only. When
an animal has lost a certain fraction of the mass of the body, death is the
result. This fraction varies with the condition of the body at the begin-
ning of the starvation period. Fat animals succumb when the weight of
the body has sunk to one-half of the original weight. Otherwise, accord-
ing to Chossat,3 animals die as a rule when the weight of the body has
sunk to two-fifths of the original weight. The period when death occurs
from starvation not only varies with the varied nutritive condition at the
beginning, of starvation, but also with the more or less active exchange
of material. This is more active in small and young animals than in large
and older ones, but different classes of animals show an unequal activity.
Children succumb in starvation in 3-5 days after having lost one-fourth
of their body mass. Grown persons may, as observed upon Succi,4
and
other professional fasters, starve for twenty days or more without lasting
injury; and there are reports of cases of starvation extending over a
period of even more than forty to fifty days. Dogs may starve, accord-
ing to several observers, 50-60 days. Hawk 5
and co-workers have
recorded a case where a dog was starved for 117 days and lost about
63 per cent of its original weight. Snakes and frogs can starve for one-
half a year or even a whole year.
In starvation the weight of the body decreases. The loss of weight is
greatest in the first few days, and then decreases rather uniformly. In
small animals the absolute loss of weight per day is naturally less than
in larger animals. The relative loss of weight—that is, the loss of weight
1
Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 31.
2
The works of Frentzel and Schreuer may be found in Arch. f. (Anat. u.) Physiol.,
1901, 1002, and L903.
3
Cited from \’<>it in Hermann’s Handbuch, 6, Thl. 1, 100.
* See Luciani, Das Hungern. Hamburg u. Leipzig, 1890.
6
P. B. Hawk, P. E. Howe, and H. A. Mattil, Journ. of biol. Chem., 11.
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