CHAP. III.] 



ADIPOSE TISSUE. 



81 



assume a polyhedral figure more or less 

 regular (fig. 9). But, if isolated, their 

 form is rounded, as may be seen in emi- 

 nent beauty in the double series of them 

 which frequently accompanies the minute 

 vessels traversing membranous expansions 

 of the areolar tissue, and other lamellar 

 structures, as the mesentery of small 

 animals. The vessels are thus attended 

 by fat vesicles, for the manifest purpose 

 of protection from the pressure to which 

 they would be exposed in their open 

 course, and they throw around each ve- JUt* 

 side a capillary loop. tum : magllified about 30 diameters ' 



Where the fat is in considerable quantity, it is commonly sub- 

 divided into a number of small fragments or lobules, fitted accu- 

 rately to one another and invested with areolar tissue, for the pur- 

 pose, chiefly, of permitting motion between the parts of the mass, 

 but, also, for the convenience of the distribution of its blood-vessels. 



Fig. 10. 



r> 



Blood-vessels of Fat: A. Minute flattened fat-lobule, in which the ve:-sels only are repre- 

 sented, a. The Terminal Artery, v. The Primitive vein. 6. The fat-vesicles of one border 

 of the lobule, separately represented. Magnified 100 diameters. B. Plan of the arrange- 

 ment of the capillaries on the exterior of the vesicles : more highly magnified. 



The blood-vessels enter the chinks between the lobules (fig. 1 0, 

 A. B.), and soon distribute themselves through their interior, under 

 the form of a solid capillary network, whose vessels occupy the 

 angles formed by the contiguous sides of the vesicles, and anasto- 

 mose with one another at the points where these angles meet. This 



VOL. i. G 



