At other times cannibalism has been a necessity.

In a famine in Egypt, as pictured by the Arab Abdullatif, the putrefying debris of animals, as well as their excrement, was used as food, and finally the human dead were used; then infants were killed and devoured, so great was the distress.

In many sieges, shipwrecks, etc., cannibalism has been practiced as a last resort for sustaining life.

When supplies have given out several Arctic explorers have had to resort to eating the bodies of their comrades.

In the famous Wiertz Museum in Brussels is a painting by this eccentric artist in which he has graphically portrayed a woman driven to insanity by hunger, who has actually destroyed her child with a view to cannibalism.