ts which, made as too often they are, without regard to the
necessary and natural conditions, possess no value, and may be
entirely dispensed with; especially when, as in the present case,
Nature affords the opportunity for observation, and when we make a
rational use of that opportunity.

In the progress of starvation, however, it is not only the fat which
disappears, but also, by degrees all such of the solids as are
capable of being dissolved. In the wasted bodies of those who have
suffered starvation, the muscles are shrunk and unnaturally soft,
and have lost their contractibility; all those parts of the body
which were capable of entering into the state of motion have served
to protect the remainder of the frame from the destructive influence
of the atmosphere. Towards the end, the particles of the brain begin
to undergo the process of oxidation, and delirium, mania, and death
close the scene; that is to say, all resistance to the oxidising
power of the atmospheric oxygen ceases, and the chemical process of
eremacausis, or decay, commences, in which every part of the body,
the bones excepted, enters into combination with oxygen.

The time which is required to cause death by starvation depends on
the amount of fat in the body, on the degree of exercise, as in
labour or exertion of any kind, on the temperature of the air, and
finally, on the presence or absence of water. Through the skin and
lungs there escapes a certain quantity of water, and as the presence
of water is essential to the continuance of the vital motions, its
dissipation hastens death. Cases have occurred, in which a full
supply of water being accessible to the sufferer, death has not
occurred till after the lapse of twenty days. In one case, life was
sustained in this way for the period of sixty days.

In all chronic diseases death is produced by the same cause, namely,
the chemical action of the atmosphere. When those substances are
wanting, whose function in the organism is to support the process of
respiration, when the diseased organs are incapable of performing
their proper function of producing these substances, when they have
lost the power of transforming the food into that shape in which it
may, by entering into combination with the oxygen of the air,
protect the system from its influence, then, the substance of the
organs themselves, the fat of the body, the substance of the
muscles, the nerves, and the brain, are unavoidably consumed.