HUNGER and THIRST. These terms are used to express peculiar sensations which are produced by and give expression to general wants of the system, satisfied respectively by the ingestion of organic solids containing substances capable of acting as food, and by water or liquids and solids containing water.
Hunger (a word common to Teutonic languages) is a peculiarly indefinite sensation of craving or want which is referred to the stomach, but with which is often combined, always indeed in its most pronounced stages, a general feeling of weakness or faintness. The earliest stages are unattended with suffering, and are characterized as “appetite for food.” Hunger is normally appeased by the introduction of solid or semi-solid nutriment into the stomach, and it is probable that the almost immediate alleviation of the sensation in these circumstances is in part due to a local influence, perhaps connected with a free secretion of gastric juice. Essentially, however, the sensation of hunger is a mere local expression of a general want, and this local expression ceases when the want is satisfied, even though no food be introduced into the stomach, the needs of the economy being satisfied by the introduction of food through other channels, as, for example, when food which admits of being readily absorbed is injected into the large intestine.
Thirst (a word of Teutonic origin, Ger. Durst, Swed. and Dan. törst, akin to the Lat. torrere, to parch) is a peculiar sensation of dryness and heat localized in the tongue and throat. Although thirst may be artificially produced by drying, as by the passage of a current of air over the mucous membrane of the above parts, normally it depends upon an impoverishment of the system in water. And, when this impoverishment ceases, in whichever way this be effected, the sensation likewise ceases. The injection of water into the blood, the stomach, or the large intestine appeases thirst, though no fluid is brought in contact with the part to which the sensation is referred.
The sensations of hunger and thirst lead us, or when urgent compel us, to take food and drink into the mouth. Once in the mouth, the entrance to the alimentary canal, the food begins to undergo a series of processes, the object of which is to extract from it as much as possible of its nutritive constituents. Food in the alimentary canal is, strictly speaking, outside the confines of the body; as much so as the fly grasped in the leaves of the insectivorous Dionea is outside of the plant itself. The mechanical and chemical processes to which the food is subjected have their seat and conditions outside the body which it is destined to nourish, though unquestionably the body is no passive agent, and innumerable glands come into action to supply the chemical agents which dissolve and render assimilable those constituents of the food capable of being absorbed into the organism, and of forming part and parcel of its substance (see further under [Nutrition]).
HUNGERFORD, WALTER HUNGERFORD, Baron (d. 1449), English soldier, belonged to a Wiltshire family. His father, Sir Thomas Hungerford (d. 1398), was speaker of the House of Commons in 1377, a position which he owed to his friend John of Gaunt, and is the first person formally mentioned in the rolls of parliament as holding the office. Walter Hungerford also served as speaker, but he is more celebrated as a warrior and diplomatist, serving in the former capacity at Agincourt and in the latter at the council of Constance and the congress of Arras. An executor of Henry V.’s will and a member of the council under Henry VI., Hungerford became a baron in 1426, and he was lord treasurer from 1426 to 1431. Remains of his benefactions still exist at Heytesbury, long the principal residence of the family.
Hungerford’s son Robert (c. 1400-1459) was also called to parliament as a baron; he was very wealthy, both his mother and his wife being heiresses. Like several other members of the family, Robert was buried in the cathedral at Salisbury.
Robert’s son and heir, Robert, Lord Moleyns and Hungerford (c. 1420-1464), married Eleanor, daughter of Sir William de Moleyns, and was called to parliament as Lord de Moleyns in 1445. He is chiefly remembered through his dispute with John Paston over the possession of the Norfolk manor of Gresham. After losing this case he was taken prisoner in France in 1452, not securing his release until 1459, During the Wars of the Roses he fought for Henry VI., with whom he fled to Scotland; then he was attainted, was taken prisoner at the battle of Hexham, and was executed at Newcastle in May 1464.
His eldest son, Sir Thomas Hungerford (d. 1469), was attainted and executed for attempting the restoration of Henry VI.; a younger son, Sir Walter Hungerford (d. 1516), who fought for Henry VII. at Bosworth, received some of the estates forfeited by his ancestors. Sir Thomas, who had no sons, left an only daughter Mary (d. c. 1534). When the attainders of her father and grandfather were reversed in 1485 this lady became Baroness Hungerford and Baroness de Moleyns; she married into the Hastings family and was the mother of George Hastings, 1st earl of Huntingdon.