LIVING WITHOUT FOOD.

Otaki Mail, 31 December 1923, Page 2

LIVING WITHOUT FOOD.

Surprise ba> been expressed thatf. the men rescued from the flooded pit. near Falkirk (Scotland) were able to exist lor nine days on "hope and water." In point of fact, it was just because these rneoi had fresh water and did not abandon hope that they not only survived their horrible imprisonment, but were actually able to crawl down to the shaft bottom, unaided, to join, their restorers. For a healthy man a ainu days' fast is, in itself, no verv dreadful ordeal (says a correspondent in the Daily Hail). There ar<- indeed plenty of people who- habitually fast at intervals for from three to seven days, simply for health's sake. The survivors from the Medusa, wrecked in the vear 187 H. mariumvl i,i lii-.. i\,r„.,,A, v>

days on a raft, without food or water, exposed, too, for much of the rime to a burning- sun. Of miners, the longest entombment of which we have any record is that of the last survivor "from the Courrieros mine in France, after the awful explosion of llarch 6th, 1906. He was, in all, 26 days below ground before being rescued. Eut he cad food for the first week of his imprisonment. Doctors are divided, us to how long a man can exist without food. Professional fasters such as Dr.

Tanner and Succi have abstained for 40, or even 50, days on end, and there is a case reported in the Lancet of 1833 of a man of 62 who refused food for four months, and recovered. The period I of fasting- before death ensues varies

J with different individuals. Generally | speaking, a healthy person can go without food until he or she las lost onethird of the bodily weight. But different people do not lose " weight at the same rate. Sueei, for instance, lost 341 b 3oz during a 40 days fast, but Jacques, the champion faster, lost only 281 b 4oz in the course of his 50 dsvs"' record fast. Medical jurisprudence assumes that a fat person' will live longer without food than a thin one. for, like the hibernating bear, a fasting man consumes his own fat. The muscles, too, lose much weight, even the skin and hair decrease in weight during a fast. The only part of the foodv -svaieh Joses nothing is the heart. " ,