488 ORIGIN OF FAT IN THE BODY. 



fatty matter in its food, so that the fat would appear to be formed from vegetable 

 proteids. 2. Carnivora giving suck, when fed on plenty of flesh and some fat, 

 yield milk rich in fat. 3. Dogs fed with plenty of flesh and some fat, add more 

 fat to their bodies than the fat contained in the food. 4. Fatty degeneration, e.g., 

 of nerve and muscle, is due to a decomposition of proteids. 5. The transformation 

 of entire bodies, e.g., such as have lain for a long time surrounded with water, into 

 a mass consisting almost entirely of palmitic acid (the adipocere of Fourcroy), is 

 also a proof of the transformation of part of the proteids into fats. 6. Fungi are 

 also able to form fat from albumin during their growth (v. Naegeli, and 0. Low). 



FatS not merely absorbed. Experiments which go to show that the fat of 

 animals, during the fattening process, is not absorbed as such, from the food : 1. 

 Fattening occurs with flesh and soaps ; it is most improbable that the soaps are 

 retransformed into neutral fats by taking up glycerin and giving up alkali 

 (Kiihne and Radziejewski). 2. If a lean dog be fed with flesh and palmitin-of 

 stearin-soda-soap, the fat of its body contains in addition to palmitin and stearin, 

 olein fat; so that the last must be formed by the organism from the proteids of the 

 flesh. Further, Ssubotin found that, when a lean dog was fed on lean meat and 

 spermaceti-fat, a very small amount of the latter was found in the fat of the 

 animal. Although these experiments show, that the fat of the body must be 

 formed from the decomposition of proteids, they do not prove that all the fat 

 arises in this way, aud that none of it is absorbed and redeposited. 



III. According to v. Voit, no fat is formed in the body directly, e.g., 

 by reduction from carbohydrates. As fattening occurs on a diet of pure 

 flesh with the addition of carbohydrates, we must assume that the 

 carbohydrates are consumed or oxidised in the body, and that, thereby, 

 a non-nitrogenous body derived from the proteids is prevented from 

 being burned up, and that it is changed into fat and stored up as 

 such. 



From experiments upon animals, however, Lawes, Lehmann, Heiden, 

 v. Wolff, think they are entitled to conclude that the carbohydrates 

 absorbed are directly concerned in the formation of fats, a view which is 

 supported by Henneberg, B. Schulze, Gilbert and Soxhlet. According 

 to Pasteur, glycerine (the basis of neutral fats) may be formed from 

 carbohydrates. 



Formerly it was believed that bees could prepare wax from honey alone; this is 

 a mistake an equivalent of albumin is required in addition the necessary amount 

 is found in the raw honey itself. 



242. Corpulence. 



The addition of too much fat to the body is a pathological phenomenon which 

 is attended with disagreeable consequences. With regard to the caUSCS of 

 obesity, without doubt there is an inherited tendency (in 33-56 per cent, of the 

 cases Bouchard, Chalmers) in many families and in some breeds of cattle to 

 lay up fat in the body, while other families may be richly supplied with fat, and 

 yet remain lean. The chief cause, however, is taking too much food, i.e. , more 

 than the amount required for the normal metabolism; corpulent people, in order 

 to maintain their bodies, must eat absolutely and relatively more than persons of 

 spare habit, under analogous conditions of nutrition (p. 477). 



