FATS. 269 
Per contra, Tennyson in his Vision of Sin admonishes us 
solemnly thaé :— 
** Every face, however full, 
Padded round with flesh and fat, 
Is but modelled on a skull! ” 
Edward Fitzgerald, in a letter to his friend Bernard Barton, 
August, 1844, wrote “I spent four pleasant days with Donne, 
who looks pale and thin. We are neither of us in what may be 
called the first dawn of boyhood, but Donne maintains his shape 
better than I do, for, sorrow, I doubt not, has done this with 
me; and so we see why the house of mourning is better than the 
stalled ox. For, it is a grievous thing to grow poddy: the age 
of chivalry is gone then.” 
Few children’s rhymes are more common than that which 
relates to Jack Sprat and his wife ; but it is little known that this 
has been current for two centuries and more. When Howell 
published his Collection of Proverbs in 1659 it contained the 
rhyme :— 
** Archdeacon Pratt would eat no fat, 
His wife would eat no lean: 
’Twixt the archdeacon and his wife 
The meat was ate up clean.” 
In certain animals, as the ox, sheep; goat, and hart, the tatty 
tissue about the loins and kidneys is known as suet ; it is harder 
fat and less fusible than that from other parts of these animals. 
Fat of the ox, or sheep, when melted out of its connective tissue 
forms tallow ; the corresponding flaky fat of hogs furnishes leat- 
lard. Mutton suet may be purified from its peculiar odour by 
being heated to 150° Fahrenheit, at which temperature the 
hircin is decomposed, and the hircic acid passes away. During 
the siege of Paris some candles made of mutton fat were thus 
purified, and the fat was then used for food. The South Germans 
term the brisket-fat, or breast-fat of sheep and oxen, because of 
its excellent nut-like flavour, “ breast-kernel.’”’ The hump of 
the Camel is analogous to it both in structure and in taste. 
If the diet of a patient is restricted to milk, and if this is well- 
borne, it may be made more nourishing as “ superfatted milk ” 
by immersing in the milk some suet finely chopped, and enclosed 
in a muslin bag; then simmering the whole for a while with 
moderate heat. To begin with, a good-sized teaspoonful of the 
suet should be used for a pint of milk, advancing presently to 
