Observations on the metabolism of man during starvation / by D. Noel Paton and Ralph Stockman.

Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the metabolism of man during starvation / by D. Noel Paton and Ralph Stockman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    1/12 (page 121)
    Observations on the Metabolism of Man during Starva- tion. By D. Noel Paton, M.D., and Ralph Stockman, M.D. (Read March 4, 1889.) Althoiigli the metabolism during starvation has been investigated in the most elaborate and exhaustive manner in the lower animals by many different observers, as yet few observations have been accomplished in man. In 1880 Tanner undertook a fast of forty days. We have been able to procure only a few fragmentary observations upon his case {British Medical Journal, vol. ii., 1880). At the commencement of his fast he weighed 71-600 kilos., and at the end of twenty-five days his weight had fallen to 60-000 kilos., indicating a loss of about 11-600 kilos., or -162 kilos, per kilo, of his original weight. During the first sixteen days he pretended to take no water, merely <^arlinff his mouth with it. Under these conditions he became seriously ill, and lost weight with great rapidity. After the sixteenth day he took water ad libitum, and in the course of the next four days he gained 4| lbs. After this he again commenced to lose weight. On the 1st day of his fast he passed 29 grms. urea. „ 5th „ „ 16 „ 18th „ „ 14 Throughout the period the weather was excessively warm. Tanner rarely walked, but daily drove for some time. He, however, spent much of his time receiving people and talking to them. A more satisfactory series of observations was made upon an Italian named Cetti, who in 1887 commenced in Berlin a fast of thirty days. His parents interfered, and his fast was stopped on the tenth day. A large number of the leading scientific men in Berlin interested themselves in the case, and together undertook a most careful and elaborate series of observations, which are recorded in the Berliner klinische Wocliensehrijt for 1887. Cetti's age was 26. He was lean, and at the beginning of the fast weighed 57 kilos.; at the end, 50-650 kilos., so that in the