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Descent to a lower level or condition
To become lower in quality, character, or condition
Atrophy can be caused by overwork.
Under the head of malformations we place cases of atrophy of parts or general dwarfing, due to starvation, the attacks of Fungi or minute insects, the presence of unsuitable food-materials and so on, as well as cases of transformation of stamens into petals, carpels into leaves, and so forth.
From atrophy of their roots, caused by the pressure of the growing permanent teeth, the " milk teeth " in children become loose and are cast off.
Many Opisthobranchia have by a process of atrophy lost the typical ctenidium and the mantleskirt, and have developed other organs in their place.
The loss of an eye will be followed by atrophy of the optic nerve; the tissues in a stump of an amputated limb show atrophic changes; a paralysed limb from long disuse shows much wasting; and one finds at great depths of the sea fishes and marine animals, which have almost completely lost the organs of sight, having been cut off for long ages from the stimuli (light) essential for these organs, and so brought into an atrophic condition from disuse.