creature, subjected to starvation, dies when the
weight of its body has lost four hundred
out of a thousand parts; and the loss is much
more considerable for the warming materials
than for the other portions of its body. Thus, out
of a thousand parts of fat, nine hundred and
thirty-three disappear. The liver loses every
trace of its peculiar sweetness. The very muscles
are consumed to produce heat; out of a thousand
parts in weight, they lose four hundred and
thirty-five. The temperature of an animal's body
being supposed to be one hundred degrees, that
amount of warmth is gradually lowered with
every day of inanition, diminishing still more
rapidly on the last day of the creature's life.
It is evident, therefore, that starvation speedily
leads to an insufficient resistance to external
cold.

As a further proof of that important fact:
When it is required to re-establish the health of
an animal that has been subjected to inanition,
or of a man who has suffered long privation of
food, it is requisite first to warm the body up
to one hundred degrees before administering
nourishment. Without this precaution, the
aliment cannot be utilised, and supplies no heat.
The sensation of cold is always keenly felt by
unfortunates who have been long deprived of
food; but the feeling of hunger is not always
insurmountable during a fast.

Eight workmen were imprisoned for one
hundred and thirty-six hours in the coal mine of
Bois-Monzil. In this terrible position, they
were mainly supported by their strength of mind
and fraternal feeling. It was generally believed
that these poor fellows, who had taken no food
for five days, would be suffering from the
torments of hunger, when the gallery where they
were confined was reached at last. But, according
to their own declaration, their long abstinence
caused them little pain; they experienced
no griping nor stomach-ache. Nevertheless, one
of them had eaten a portion of his shirt; another
had gnawed his leather braces; while a third
had tried to swallow the wick of his lamp.
Interrogated on this subject, they answered that
they were driven to this extreme measure simply
as a precaution, and to keep up their strength.
Such were their own expressions. On the first
day, they shared half a pound of bread, a piece
of cheese, and two glasses of wine, which one of
them had brought down into the mine, and which
he would not keep for himself alone. Two
others, who had eaten just before they came,
refused to partake of the distribution, saying
that "they ought not to die later than the
others."

As a proof of the effects of scarcity on a
population, it is found that mortality constantly
augments with rises in the price of wheat; and
that this influence is most disastrous when
several years of scarcity succeed each other.
At present, that influence is considerably
diminished both by freedom of trade and also by the
culture of crops collateral to wheat, which help
to make up for its deficient quantity when
falling short. Nevertheless, a check on the
increase of population is always experienced after
high-priced months, or years, which reduce the
mass of the people to scanty fare.

The famine of 1816-17, which was so cruelly
felt in the eastern departments of France, was
caused, in the first place, by foreign invasion;
and secondly, by constant rains, which were
unfavourable to the flowering and the ripening of
grain plants. During the months of January,
February, and March of 1817, the people in
the rural districts had nothing to eat but potatoes
of bad quality, pollard, and bran. In April,
May, and June, all they had left were bran and
wild herbs, amongst which nettles played an
important part. The effects of this disastrous
famine were traced with great exactness by Dr.
Gaspard. The unhappy victims almost all
presented a general swelling of the body, without
either dropsy or jaundice; they fainted along
the roads; the impression of the first cold
weather was terrible; they felt benumbed by
the lowered temperature, and soon sunk under
its effects. All accounts of famine in rural
districts are replete with similar symptoms.

The famine of 1846-47 was a heavy scourge.
Paris was in some sort preserved from it; but
in the north of Europe a million of men, or
thereabouts, succumbed under its ravages. Its
principal causes were the exaggerated expectations
to which the potato had given rise. By
far too sanguine hopes were founded on the
produce of a root of rapid growth and
susceptible of easy culture in rainy seasons,
when cereal crops are apt to fail. Certainly,
the potato fulfilled that object; but it was grown
on much too large and too exclusive a scale,
particularly in Ireland and in Flanders. With
the increased production of this alimentary
substance, there arose a very numerous but feeble
population, incapable of resisting either hard
work or privation. The potato disease then
showed itself, and multitudes were left without
food of any kind to eat.

M. de Meersman's exact and interesting
account of the famine of 1847 shows us, in the
clearest manner, the effects of cold on starving
people. As soon as the weather became really
severe, they died suddenly all over the land in
such numbers that the whole country was
alarmed and excited. But they did not all die
in the same manner. With some, the symptoms
were concentrated in the chest; they were
choked by coughs or suffocated by watery suffusions.
Others were carried off by diarrhœa. A
few, after several hours' lethargic sleep, expired
without apparent pain. Many sunk under the
first attacks of an intermittent fever, which was
sure to assume a pernicious character in systems
so impoverished as those. Finally, when
succour at last arrived, many died of indigestions
produced by a too abundant supply of substantial
food, which their weakened stomachs were
unable to assimilate.

The treatment of famine fever is extremely
simple. At the outset, the digestive organs are
strengthened by a few drops of generous wine,
mixed with water; light nutriment is carefully