106 THE ACTION OF THE LIVING CELL 



or produced in vivo by the other means previously dis- 

 cussed, he will see that the effects are the same. These 

 experiments therefore support the contention that cy- 

 tost may be liberated in vivo by starvation. 



Much the same end may be achieved by feeding 

 animals a complete although unsatisfactory diet. For 

 example, six monkeys were fed small squares of bread 

 fried in cottonseed oil in addition to the usual daily 

 vegetable rations. (Turck, 1917.) All six of the ani- 

 mals kept on such a diet died within twenty-eight to 

 sixty-one days, although other monkeys kept in the 

 laboratory and fed vegetables alone remained in a 

 healthy condition. At autopsy all six of the fat- 

 fed animals presented much the same picture. The 

 splanchnic vessels were markedly congested, and the 

 tissues, especially the liver, were found to have suf- 

 fered fatty infiltration. Peptic ulcers were found in 

 the pyloric region of the stomach. 



Although these changes were induced by a high 

 fat diet, it does not seem likely that the fats per se 

 were responsible for the observed pathology. The 

 latter suggest the action of cytost, whose liberation 

 may be accounted for in the following way. 



The normal diet of the monkey consists largely of 

 carbohydrate. Consequently when forced to ingest 

 relatively large amounts of fats, these animals, one 

 may well imagine, are subjected to a severe acidosis 

 and, as we have seen, an acidosis in the tissues leads 

 to rapid autolysis and the subsequent liberation of 

 cytost. Further, in these experiments, it seems likely 

 that the fats may have interfered with the digestion 

 and absorption of food; hence the animals may have 

 suffered partial inanition which, as pointed out above, 



