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.

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    themselves into a committee, taking watch in rotation, so that Jacques should never be left for a moment unattended by one of tliem. (7 may say that one or two members of my class acted upon this committee, and that I have not the slightest doicbt that the sur- veillance was complete.—D. N. P.) We have to thank the gentlemen of this committee for much valuable assistance, without which our observations could not have been carried out. More especially are we indebted to Mr Griffiths for the endless trouble he took in preparing for us notes of weights, of amount of exercise taken, and of other points of interest. Jacques is a somewhat slightly built individual, of 47 years of age. He is a block-printer, and was born at St Amant-les-Eaux, Nord. He has no great muscular development, nor has he any excess of subcutaneous fat. He has always enjoyed good health, and states that he has already successfully carried out five different fasts of varying duration. Four or five years ago he fasted in private for one week. A month later he fasted for fourteen days. In 1886 he fasted in London for twenty-one days, being watched during the period. We have ascertained that the surveillance M^as by no means so thorough as could be desired. In the spring of 1887 he fasted in private for thirty days, and in the spring of 1888 he underwent in private a fast of forty days. During all these fasts he believes that he has been sustained by taking in very small quantities a mixture of certain herbs, which he in his first three experiments used in the form of a decoction, but in all subsequent experiments as a powder. The composition of this preparation he keeps a profound secret. But before commencing the present fast, he made a sworn declara- tion that it was entirely composed of herbs growing in Kent. Of this powder he took only the smallest quantities, a mere pinch, generally once, more rarely twice daily. On several days he did not take any. During the course of his fast he rubbed into his thighs and trunk small quantities of camphorated olive oil. But in the course of the thirty days, only 306 grms. were so rubbed in. He also used small (juantities of a lotion which he applied to the head, as he said, because it refreshed him greatly. On examination this was found