26 Comments on Corpulency. 



the likeness of one fat man to another, which, during the search 

 for Georges, in France, harassed all the fat people from one 

 end of Gaul to the other. 



Having hitherto treated the subject in *' merry mood," let 

 us now look at it in a more serious way. Fat is, of all the 

 humours or substances, forming part of the human body, the 

 most diffused ; a certain proportion of it is indicative of health, 

 and denotes being in good condition — nay, is even conducive 

 to beauty ; but when in excess — amounting to what may be 

 termed obesity — it is not only in itself a disease, but may be 

 the cause of many fatal effects, particularly in acute disorders. 

 Many able medical writers of the last century attributed serious 

 evils to the local, as well as thie general derangements, that 

 occasionally take place in fat. Many of these might be " whims 

 of a day, and theories of an hour" — fancies dependant on the 

 then physiological and pathological theories, but they speak 

 very positively to certain facts. 



Monsieur Lorry, a celebrated French physician, indulged in 

 Bome curious spieculations relative to acute diseases, arising 

 from the admixture of bile, milk, or pus^ with fat, in a fluid 

 state. Either of these uniting with the last, in certain con- 

 ditions of the body, would produce a sort of *^ tertium quid/* 

 in the shape of a soapy liquor, causing acute diseases in some, 

 and chronic diseases in others ; and persons have been supposed 

 to die of consumption when, in fact, they were washed away to 

 the other world by their own soap !* Pus and fat mixing toge- 



* There is no substance in the human body, M. Lorry observes, more active in 

 reducing fat, than pus. Pus mixed with fat gives it the solubility of soap. A purulent 

 mass, and a fatty mass, mixed together, unite with uncommon promptitude. The 

 first effect of this liquefied mass is to produce high-coloured hot urine, which in a few 

 minutes becomes turbid, like badly made soap, when dissolved. It acquires an in- 

 supportable odour, and deposits very little red sediment. There floats upon the surface 

 an oily substance, imitating, in colour, the Ta.\nhoyv , the putrid volatility of which 

 is so strong as to affect the eyes. The patient feels an oppression about the chest, 

 and difficulty of breathing, which is a little relieved by spitting up a yellow bloody 

 phlegm. Frequently, erysipelatous spots appear on the skin, and become hard j 

 sometimes even the muscular parts become hard, as if penetrated by these spots ; in 

 a few days the eyes become yellow, the liver inflamed and painful. This threatens 

 jaundice, which, if it terminates successfully, is carried oft" by copious bilious eva- 

 cuations. Hippocrates remarks, that the crisis is fatal, if it happens before con- 

 coction, or if the evacuation does not lessen the bulk of the patient, by discharging 

 the whole of the soapy basis of the fat, that has the character of bile. The liver acts 

 as a depuratory organ to the fat, receiving and evacuating the corrupted humours, 

 and may be considered, according to this ancient doctor, in these cases, as the 

 emanctory of the fat. 



