Fearing the Danger Point: The Study and Treatment of Human Starvation in the United Kingdom and India, c. 1880–1974

摘要: In the late nineteenth century, nutritional scientists and physicians recognized clinical symptoms of human starvation, which they regarded primarily as a protein deficiency. absence large studies advanced could not, however, determine how long normal person live without food. British famine relief officers feared illusive “danger point” at starving presumably suffer deadly collapse. Scientists made dramatic advances in their understanding nutrition first half twentieth century. They learned that most critical factors starvation were deficiencies amino acids, vitamins, and, above all, carbohydrates. Yet these slow to influence treatment by physicians. Prison medical officers, particular, continued focus on diagnosis forcible feeding growing number hunger strikers British, Irish, Indian prisons. Long after had abandoned Victorian maxim was “the only true nutrient,” prison forcibly feed liquid mixture milk, eggs, beef, brandy.