There is little deleterious change noticed in these men; in fact,
they are rarely invalids.
Hydroadipsia is a lack of thirst or absence of the normal desire
for water. In some of these cases there is a central lesion which
accounts for the symptoms. McElroy, among other cases, speaks of
one in a patient who was continually dull and listless, eating
little, and complaining of much pain after the least food. This,
too, will be mentioned under abstinence.
Perverted appetites are of great variety and present many
interesting as well as disgusting examples of anomalies. In some
cases the tastes of people differ so that an article considered
by one race as disgusting would be held as a delicacy by another
class. The ancients used asafetida as a seasoning, and what we
have called "stercus diaboli," the Asiatics have named the "food
of the gods." The inhabitants of Greenland drink the oil of the
whale with as much avidity as we would a delicate wine, and they
eat blubber the mere smell of which nauseates an European. In
some nations of the lower grade, insects, worms, serpents, etc.,
are considered edible. The inhabitants of the interior of Africa
are said to relish the flesh of serpents and eat grubs and worms.
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