HUNGER, an uneasy sensation occasioned by long abstinence from food when the body is in a healthy state.—Many speculations and conjectures have been formed concerning the cause of this sensation, but none of them in any degree satisfactory. The most ingenious and plausible is that of Dr Haller, viz. that as the liver is not then sustained by the stomach and intestines, it descends by its own weight, and, principally by means of its middle ligament, pulls the diaphragm along with it. It is in that place, therefore, that we have this uneasy sensation, and not at the superior orifice of the stomach as is generally thought.—But if this was the case, an empty stomach should always be accompanied with hunger, which does not hold in fact: because, in certain diseases, people will often fast a long time without any sensation of hunger; and on the contrary, there are cases where scarce any degree of repletion of the stomach and intestines can extinguish the desire of food. See (the Index subjoined to) MEDICINE.
When animals die for want of food, their death is not directly the consequence of hunger, i. e. it does not proceed from a deficiency of juices, but from a bad quality of them. The blood, being deprived of its
usual supplies of fresh chyle, contracts a putrescent disposition; from whence arises a fever of the putrid kind, and of a nature similar to the jail or hospital fever.