It is evident to the writer that the quantity of food furnished to the
prisoners was far from being adequate to support animal life, and from
this deficiency alone he can explain to his satisfaction the enormous loss
of life. The admirable experiments of Boussingault and the French
academicians show how the increase of weight in the feeding of animals is
in direct proportion to the amount of plastic constituents in the daily
supply of food, and how positive is the law which regulates the animal
economy. Again, we can form some idea of the positive effects of the
horrible condition of the prison, and of the extremes of heat and moisture
upon the feeble digestion and assimilation, by the experiments of Claude
Bernard, who shows how these functions may be disturbed by external
influences, and how agony even causes the disappearance of sugar in the
hepatic organ, and how fear disturbs the glucogenic process. There is
connected with inanition a singular tendency to decomposition and
putridity, alike in the blood and viscera. The system left unnourished
rapidly wastes, and its vitality soon lessens to a degree beyond recovery.
This degree depends upon the forces in reserve, which belongs especially
to youth; middle age is less liable to impressions, but when once
affected, has less support from the system. The rapidity with which the
dead decomposed immediately after death, astonished the observing surgeon.
The prevailing diarrhoea and scorbutic condition were the results of the
want of food and the combined influences of the bad air and water, and not
the primary causes of the feebleness and death.
The effect of the want of food first appears in loss of color--wasting
away of the form, diminution of strength, vertigo, relaxation of the
system of the viscera as well as of the muscles, diarrhoea appears, and
rapidly closes the struggle of the natural forces for life.
A few days, or a few weeks, according to the initial condition, is
sufficient to test the tenacity of the powers of life. Death always takes
place whenever the diminution of the total weight of the body reaches
certain limits, which is from 40/100 to 50/100 of the usual weight. We
observe this law to be quite positive and regular with the lower animals,
with whom the effect of starvation has been well studied, and the limit of
loss, compatible with life, found to be 40/100 for mammals and 50/100 for
birds.