s life the
parents say there was a considerable discharge of foul reddish matter
from the lungs. To this perhaps the offensive smell referred to may be
chiefly attributed. The pulse was regular, but slow and feeble, and the
arteries extremely contracted. The radial artery, for example, could be
distinctly felt like a small, hard thread, communicating almost a wiry
feel.

"The alvine evacuations were rare; it is believed that he passed several
weeks without any, but the secretion of urine seemed more regular. He
died after fasting fifty-three days. On dissection the stomach was found
loose and flabby. The gall bladder was distended with a dark,
muddy-looking bile. The mesentery, stomach and intestines were
excessively thin and transparent. There was no fat in the omentum."

In cases of complete abstinence, the phenomena--to several of which
attention has already been called--are very striking. The respiration
becomes slow until just before death, when, as Chossat observes, there
is often a quickening of the respiratory movements. The exhaled breath
has a peculiarly sickening and fetid odor. The pulse loses in force and
frequency.

The blood becomes reduced in quantity to such an extent sometimes that,
as observed by Collard and Martigny,[25] incisions may be made in
various parts of the bodies of animals suffering from inanition without
there being any haemorrhage.

The animal temperature falls, according to Chossat, 8 deg. per day until the
day of death, when it reaches 14 deg.; and at the moment life departs, the
loss suddenly becomes 30 deg..

All the secretions are diminished in quantity. This is especially shown
as regards the saliva and urine. Even open sores cease to secrete pus.

At first there is pain, the seat of which is referred to the stomach,
and which pain in the beginning, being simply a feeling of emptiness,
rapidly assumes a gnawing or tearing character. But before long this
fades away and it does not appear that in the middle and final stages of
inanition there is any suffering which can be called a pain, or which
can be fixed in any definite part of the body.

The mental faculties are profoundly affected. A high state of delirium
supervenes, and there are often hallucinations. These sometimes relate
to food, which appears to the sufferer to be spread out before him in
the most seducing manner. All nobility of character disappears, and
selfishness and brutality govern. Finally the delirium beco