THE CONNECTIVE-SUBSTANCE CROUP. 



49 



The fat of the human body is a mixture of an oleaginous 

 substance, triolein, which contains in solution certain quanti- 

 ties of more solid matter, tripalmitin and tristearin. When 

 the latter increase, there are, on the cooling of the body at 

 first, depositions of tuberculated forms, and finally of crys- 

 talline. We now perceive irregular needles, at one time tuft- 

 shaped and stellate, radiating from a central point, again in 

 crowded aggregations filling the whole cell. On warming 

 they again disappear. 



Adipose tissue takes a very active part in the material 

 changes of the body ; it is likewise a very vascular substance. 



As a result of prolonged starvation, in exhausting diseases, 

 a portion of the fatty contents disappear from the cell 

 (Fig. 49). The fat drop (d) 

 is at first but slightly re- 

 moved from the membrane. 

 A spherical cortex of gela- 

 tinous, finely granular sub- 

 stance (protoplasma?), sur- 

 rounds the former ; the nu- 

 cleus nOW becomes Visible. FlG - 49— Impoverished fat cells from ^the sub- 



cutaneous cellular tissue ol a human cadaver. 



The progressing deprivation 



of fat is shown by the cells a to/ and h. Finally {g), only a 

 {cw fat globules remain ; the entire cavity is now occupied by 

 the gelatinous matter. Such examples have been designated, 

 not especially happily, as fat cells " containing serum." 



If the body outlasts this condition of emaciation, and sub- 

 sequently, by a more abundant nourishment, resumes the old 

 full appearance, the cells have again become filled with the 

 fatty contents. 



The massiveness of the adipose tissue varies considerably. 

 It is greater in children and women than in men ; more con- 

 siderable in the blooming period of life than in senility. 

 Here, above all, individuality asserts itself very powerfully. 

 In high degrees of obesity, fat cells frequently occur in places 

 where they do not belong, as, for example, between the mus- 

 cular fibres. In far advanced emaciation, the panniculus adi- 



