366 Transactions of the Society. 



upon as a necessary corollary to his hypothesis that fat-cells are 

 developed from the adventitia of blood-vessels, and Fig. 4 gives 

 fair support to it, where cells g, g, in the early stage of development 

 into fat-cells, lie at the very centre of nutrition, while the fully 

 developed fat-cells a, a he at the periphery. That this mode of 

 development should be very common is easily accounted for by the 

 fact that both wandering cells and surplus nutrition are most plen- 

 tiful immediately external to the blood-vessels, from which they 

 indeed probably come, and consequently fat-cells may most readily 

 be developed there. But Fig. 1 shows equally well the more 

 advanced fat-cells lying nearest the vessels, and the earhest stages of 

 development of fat in cells at the periphery. All this shows that 

 it is incorrect to limit the direction of development to one course as 

 Flemming has done, or indeed to make a special question of direction 

 of development, as we have shown that it may proceed from opposite 

 directions or from any direction. 



In Fig. 4 it will be observed that the fat is developing or being 

 formed in two different conditions within cells, that while in cells 

 a, a and g only one large globule exists, in cells h, h we have a large 

 number of comparatively small globules appearing within one cell. 



This really points to an important difierence in the time or 

 manner of fat formation within cells, which we did not perceive 

 when the drawing was made, but which subsequent observations 

 ex])lained. If in a fat-cell the fat is slowly but steadily deposited, 

 or has existed there for a long time, even if originally deposited in 

 globules which have subsequently run together, we find in such 

 cases only one large fat-globule flliing and distending the cell. If, 

 however, nutrition has been excessive and fat rapidly formed, we 

 generally find it deposited as numerous globules, more especially if 

 the cells in which it is deposited possess much protoplasm or were 

 previously existing fat-cells which had become exhausted. Fig. 5 

 is an example of this condition, in which the exhausted fat-cells were 

 probably in the condition of those shown in Fig. 9 ; but if the cells 

 have passed into the granular condition shown in Fig. 10, the 

 globules then appear to be imbedded in a granular matrix, as shown 

 in specimens which we exhibit under the Microscope. 



We mention these points on account of the importance they may 

 have in medico-legal cases, such as the late Penge case ; for the 

 appearance of the globule not only gives us an idea of the quick- 

 ness of its formation, but the pellucid or granular character of the 

 matrix in which the globules are imbedded gives us an idea of the 

 degree of exhaustion which had preceded the re-development of fat. 



The latter conditions are very common in mice which have 

 entered a trap while in a starving condition, and afterwards 

 gorged themselves on the bait employed. In this way we have 

 procured several specimens similar to Fig. 5, where in no case had 



