REPORT OF MEDICAL SECTION. 147 
Professor Jameson. Next to these changes taking place in the 
liying body, yet probably, except in the case of foetal fat, beyond 
the limits of organization, it may perhaps be allowable to place 
the pathological degeneration of some tissues into fat. The 
muscles of the limbs and the contractile fibrous coat of an en- 
larged and thickened bladder have been found converted into 
this substance. The most frequent, as well as the most re- 
markable of these fatty degenerations is the production of fat 
livers, which has attracted the special notice of some foreign 
pathologists. It is comparatively rare in this country, and but 
few very well marked instances have been met with amongst 
many hundred inspections performed during several years at 
Guy’s Hospital; yet what have appeared to be approaches to it 
have not been very rare. This degeneration essentially belongs 
to the acini, which are generally, if not invariably, enlarged in 
size, paler, and less supplied with blood than in the healthy 
state, and have nearly or wholly lost their power of secreting 
bile. In the advanced cases, the specific gravity of the liver be- 
comes less than that of water, and fatty matter forms by far the 
largest part of its composition, whilst in other cases in which 
this degeneration has taken place fat has only formed a small 
per centage. Now it is not very uncommon to find in cachetic 
patients, who have long been unable to take exercise, a consi- 
derably enlarged liver, dependent on the great hypertrophy of 
the acini, which, though wanting the essential characteristics of 
the fatty degeneration, are paler and more homogeneous than 
in the healthy liver, and have more or less lost the power of 
producing bile. It is perhaps not too wild a speculation to 
imagine, that in this impaired condition of the organ it may not 
be able to resist the tendency to those changes which inorganized 
‘animal matter undergoes when placed in circumstances favour- 
able to their production. This leads us to another remark, ap- 
plicable to other cases, and which seems to reconcile the specu- 
lations which we have allowed ourselves to offer with facts 
which will doubtless be readily admitted. . 
The different tissues, while they retain their healthy condition 
unimpaired, resist these common tendencies more or less forci- 
bly, and apparently in each in a peculiar manner, and they are 
consequently enabled to maintain their own peculiar composition, 
notwithstanding the incessant molecular changes effected by 
nutrition ; and where they happen to be secreting organs, the 
same uniformity is preserved in their products. But when they 
are impaired by disease or accident this isolating faculty is in- 
jured or lost. Thus in the experiments of Majendie, Foedera, 
Segellas, Meyer, Tiedemann and Gmelin, and others, with refer- 
L2 
