262 HALOIDS AND HALOID BASES. 



pure water instead of fat, the force of the muscles, which is, more- 

 over, better adapted to rapid movement than to overcome a 

 resisting power, would undoubtedly be very considerably dimi- 

 nished ; for there can be no doubt that in hy drops anasarca the 

 muscular weakness does not depend alone on the tension, and on 

 the morbid diminution of the muscular activity, but likewise on the 

 altered condition of gravity of the whole extremity, depending on 

 the accumulation of water and diminution of fat. 



One of the best known properties of fat, is that of its rendering 

 other bodies supple, and diminishing as much as possible the brittle- 

 ness of bodies, and the friction of parts moving on one another. 

 This use is made most apparent in the movement of the muscles, 

 and the free action of the joints. In this point of view, the utility 

 of fat is nowhere more conspicuous than in the bones. Fat, un- 

 doubtedly, gives great flexibility to the earthy bones, as we perceive 

 from their brittleness when macerated ; and as is made most appa- 

 rent in the disease of the bones inaptly termed osteomalacia, for, 

 while there is so extraordinary a loss of osseous matter, that the 

 bones appear, when macerated, to consist of a mere gauze-like 

 tissue, most of the interstices are entirely filled with fat, as if the 

 vis nature medicatrix would in some degree compensate, by an 

 excessive accumulation of fat, for that property of the bones which 

 has been destroyed by this disease. 



I found, in the ribs of a patient who had died in a state of 

 extreme osteomalacia, 56'92 of fat together with 24'665% of other 

 organic matters, 15 '881$ of phosphate, and 2' 534% of carbonate of 

 lime. 



The utility of fat, considered in a mechanical point of view, is 

 so evident from what has been already said, that it would seem 

 superfluous to add any further remarks on the subject. If negative 

 evidence were admissible, we might observe that fatty deposits are 

 rarely or never found in the brain and lungs, where their presence 

 would occasion mechanical injury, since external pressure, and even 

 a slight increase of heat, would prove injurious to these organs. In 

 the glans penis again we find no fat, because its presence would, 

 undoubtedly, contribute to increase the irritability of this organ. 



Before we proceed to the consideration of the chemico-physical 

 uses of fat, we will cursorily advert to the view which has long pre- 

 vailed in physiology, that the fat deposited in the areolar tissue is 

 nothing more than a stored-up nutriment. This proposition, advanced 

 in accordance with the earlier views of natural philosophy, appeared 

 to derive a considerable degree of corroboration from a general con- 



