Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/527

* FAST. 175 FASTI. As the amount of muscle lost during the fasting period contained about 15.2 grains of nitrogen, ii. ore than half the lost nitrogen came from metabolism of muscular tissue. Experience has taught that the weight of an adult's body may remain approximately constant for months or years, even under varying conditions of diet. Also, the relative proportions of the various tis- sues of the body remain constant, in addition to an unchanged weight. Evidently, in such eases, the expenditure of the body must precisely bal- ance its income. If it did not lose as much nitrogen as it takes in. the body would gain in muscle. If it did not lose as much carbon as it takes in, it would put on fat. It may be losing or gaining carbon, losing or gaining fat, and yet the proteid constituents remain constant in a ant, the expenditure of nitrogen being exact- ly equal to the income of nitrogen. This condi- tion is called 'nitrogenous equilibrium.' In a fasting animal, while urea is excreted and car- bonic acid is given off, the expenditure of nitrogen is very small. The glycogen and then the fat disappear, and, lastly, some of the proteid. But, as the figures given show, the heart and central nervous system are supported, and lose but little in weight, while other organs are sacrificed to feed them. The results obtained from the study of fasting men differ a little from those in the case of starving animals. In men. the excretion of ni- trogen diminishes continuously for several days. There is a diminution of the chlorine and urea in the urine, and an increase in phenol. The respiratory quotient sinks to a figure less than the one corresponding to oxidation of fats alone. The inference must be that some of the carbon of the disintegrated proteids is stored up in the body as glycogen. After a certain period of fasting, fever, rest- lessness, and delirium generally set in. The delir- ium may be mild, with hallucinations of food and drink, or it may be furious. Age and obesity have a considerable influence upon the length of time life persists, in the face of actual starva- tion. A case is recorded, of the wreck of the frigate Medusa in 1876, when fifteen people sur- vived without food on an open raft, for thirteen days. In the case of a convict, quoted by Berard, life was sustained on water alone for sixty-three days. Eight miners survived five days and sixteen hours with almost no food. But, generally, death occurs in man after from five to eight days of total deprivation of food. Chossat states that death from starvation occurs after a loss of four- tenths of the weight of the body. Though there have been many alleged cases of fasting for thirty days, or even some years, by certain professional fasters or religious women, nothing of the sort Could possibly have happened, impostures having thus been practiced invariably in every ease. Dogs live from thirty to thirty-five days if de- prived entirely of food and drink. Hibernating animals (see Hibernation) are capable of sustaining the want of food for an apparently indefinite period of weeks during the winter sleep; but no warm-blooded animar can endure fasting in anything like the same: degree as the reptiles — in many of which, indeed, the natural state of existence is one of long intervals between the times of taking food, and in which the vital change of texture i~ remarkably slow. Thus, the remarkable amphibious animal, the Vol. VII. — 31. Proteus anguinus, has been known to live for yea n wit hout loud, and the same is i rue oi sala- manders, tortoises, and even goldfishes. In at- tempting the recovery of persons reduced by fast- ing, food must be given in very small quantities al a i ime, and of the most nourishing and <ligr-i i ble quality ; -i imulants should be eit her wit hheld or verj cautiously adn- mistered. The most im- portant point, next to tin- regulation of the food, and sometimes even before food is given at all, is the removal oi the chill of the body by gradu- ally applied heat; for, in addition to emaciation and aires! of secretion, the animal heat falls per- cept ibly during lasting. Bibliography. Consult the Hebrew archaeolo- gies of Nowack (Freiburg, 1894) and Benzinger (ib., 1894); Linsenmayr, Die Enttoicklung der Uirrhl ieli< ■// l-'ush iitli,~iplin bis r.iutt Koneil von Nioaa (Munich, 1877); Robertson Smith, Relig- ion of tlic Semites (Cambridge, lSill); Smend, Alttestamentlielie Rclitjionsgeschiehte ( Freiburg, 1899) ; Duchesne, Origines du culte clvrilien (Paris, 1898). For the physiological cll'ecls, eon- suit: Flint, Text-Boole of Human Physiology (New York, 1879) ; Stewart, Manual of Physiol- ogy (London, 1895). FAST AND LOOSE. The name of a cheating game, also called pricking at the belt, which ap- pears to have been much practiced by the gypsies in the time of Shakespeare. The following is a description: "A leathern belt is made up into a number of intricate folds, and placed edgewise upon a table. One of the folds is made to re- semble the middle of a girdle, so that whoever shall thrust a skewer into it would think he held it fast to the table ; whereas, when he has so done, the person with whom he plays may take hold of both ends and draw it away." FASTENRATH, fas'ten-rat, Johann (1839 — ). A German writer, born at Remscheid. He studied at the universities of Bonn, Heidelberg, Munich, and Berlin, and in Paris; traveled exten- sively in Spain in 1864. 1869, and 1879 ; wrote sev- eral works of verse after the Spanish manner ( Ein spanischer Romanzenstrauss, 1866; Hesperische BVlten, 1869; Immortelle*, aus Toledo, 1869); and in Das Built meiner spanischen Freunde (1870) introduced to German readers the work of contemporary Spanish poets through transla- tions of representative specimens. His La Wal- halla y las glorias de Alemania (1872-87) per- formed a reverse service, describing for Spanish benefit, under the guise of interesting essays, prominent German characters from the days of Hermann. Numerous other original volumes and translations have in a scholarly manner familiar- ized in Germany much of Spanish literature and history. FAS'TI (Lat. nom. pi., lawful, from fas, di- vine law, sc. dies, days). Among the Romans, the days on which it was lawful to transact busi- ness before the praetor; while the dies nefasti were those on which courts were not in session. The dies comitiales, on which the assembly and the Senate might convene, were also loosely styled fasti. The nefasti embraced the dies re- ligiosi and the feriw (holidays). Of the strict dies fasti there were some forty: of the dies comi- tiales, some one hundred and ninety: of the dies nefasti, about fifty: of the dies religiosi, some fifty. There were also eight dies mtercisi, which for certain hours in the forenoon and afternoon