260 HALOIDS AND HALOID BASES. 



mainly owing to the same cause ; and in every part of the body in 

 which greater or less deposits of fat are met with, nature appears 

 to have had a similar object in view. Hence fat is found to 

 remain the longest in the parts where it is most needed, as in the 

 heart and in the orbit of the eye. How could so complicated a 

 muscular structure as the heart move with freedom, ease, and 

 regularity, if the interstices formed by the muscular bundles often 

 contracting in opposite directions were not filled with fat, and if 

 the vessels proceeding from them were not completely enclosed in 

 fat? How would the muscles of the eye, and indeed the eye itself, 

 act, if we could remove all the fat from the orbit of the living 

 subject ? Deprived of this protection, the muscles would become 

 unable to discharge their functions, the optic nerve would be com- 

 pressed, and sight utterly destroyed. Thus, too, we find in the 

 rounded abdominal cavity, which is traversed by the cylindrical 

 intestinal canal, that every fissure and interstice is filled up with 

 fatty masses ; in the great omentum, in the mesentery, and the 

 appendices epiploicae, wherever there is an interstice we find fat ; 

 and it is most evident, that by these means all friction, and every 

 violent shock, are diminished, while a free peristaltic movement is 

 afforded to the intestinal canal. The lower part of the pelvis is 

 especially furnished with fat of so yielding a nature as to permit 

 of the organs of excretion contained in it, being dilated at will. How 

 different would be the appearance of the face if all the fat were re- 

 moved from the muscles and from below the skin! The fat which 

 smooths the bony corners and angles, and the narrow muscles of the 

 face, is the cosmetic employed by nature to stamp the human coun- 

 tenance with the incomparable impress which exalts it far above all 

 the lower animals. A similar physical use seems to be equally 

 apparent in the deposition of fat on the extremities, although its 

 presence may there be subservient to other purposes. 



Although we find but little fat in the extremities of persons 

 who are accustomed to exercise their muscles strongly, the 

 quantity present is yet sufficient to effect the purposes already 

 indicated. 



Fat, when in a fluid state, is moreover a very bad conductor of 

 heat. This property of fat has been most wonderfully employed 

 by nature for the protection of the animal body from the injurious 

 effects of excessive heat or cold, and of rapid alternations of tempe- 

 rature. Every one acquainted with the propagation of heat in 

 fluid bodies, will easily perceive, that by the distribution of fat in 

 small cells and layers, by which the rising and falling of the heated 



