PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
239 
formed. Nothing can demonstrate this more clearly than the growth 
of the eggs of the common bluebottle on meat or in defibrinated blood. 
It is therefore maintained by those who hold this view, as Toldt and 
Subbotin, that the cells originally take up soluble albuminous com- 
pounds, wdiich, undergoing disintegration within the cells, split into 
certain compounds that readily escape from them, and fat, which 
remains behind. These authors hold that all the fat of the food is 
consumed or burnt off during its passage through the economy, and 
is only exceptionally applied to increase the natural stores present in 
the body. A third view, to a certain extent intermediate to the other 
two, is held by Kadziejewski, who maintains that an important pro- 
portion of the fat of the food is converted into soap by the pancreatic 
juice and the alkali of the biliary acids, and in this state easily 
traverses the intestinal epithelium, as well as the membranes of the 
proper fat-cells. These cells, again, have the power of converting the 
soaps into free fat, which remains in their interior. This view is 
certainly supported by various micro-chemical and physical researches 
showing the importance of saponification in facilitating the passage of 
fats through animal membranes. Eadziejewski himself has demon- 
strated — first, that soda soaps are absorbed in their passage through 
the intestines ; secondly, that soaps made of oils foreign to the 
economy are deposited but slightly, if* at all, in the form in which 
they are ingested. Whilst the experiments of Matteucci and others, 
showing the effects of alkalies on the osmosis of fats, are well known. 
The whole subject is well reviewed by M. Hofmann in a paper just 
published in the ‘ Zeitschrift fur Biologie,’ giving an account of a 
series of experiments in which he attempted to ascertain whether any, 
and if any, how much, fat was stored up from the fat consumed in the 
food. With this end in view, he starved a dog till it had consumed 
all, or nearly all, the fat in its body. It was then supplied freely 
witli fat mingled with a small quantity of albumen. After a few 
days it was killed, and the total amount of fat in the body determined. 
A certain amount, it is evident, might proceed from the decomposition 
of the albumen ; but if the quantity found exceeded this amount, 
estimated as highly as possible, it is equally clear that the excess 
must proceed from the fat consumed as food. This, however, did not 
prove that the fat w T as stored up in fat-cells, since it might be con- 
tained in the blood ; and a special set of researches were instituted to 
show that the blood, under these circumstances, was not extraordinarily 
rich in fatty compounds. The general result of M. Hofmann’s 
experiments, as far as they have yet gone, seems to prove definitely 
that the fat stored up in the body cannot possibly be entirely derived 
from the albumen consumed as food, but must be in part obtained 
from the hits. M. Hofmann does not, however, attempt to explain 
the mode in which the fat gains entrance into the cells of adipose 
tissue — a point on wdiich we are at present completely in the dark. 
YOL. VIII. 
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