MASKING OF FAT 371 



may escape detection by osmic acid staining. From Mans- 

 f eld's studies it would appear that the resorbed fat enters 

 in part into some sort of combination with the protein in 

 the blood, and thus becomes insoluble in ether. We are 

 compelled, therefore, to distinguish in the blood between 

 the free fat and the combined fat. Only the free fat can be 

 supposed capable of passing through the capillary walls 

 and entering the tissues. Possibly, too, changes of lipoids 

 may play some part in the apparent disappearance of fat in 

 the blood. 57 



Relation of the Masking of Fat to Fatty Degeneration. 

 That crude interferences like heat coagulation, the influence 

 of alcohol or peptic digestion are capable of breaking the 

 delicate combinations between fat and protein (at first sup- 

 posed necessarily to be physical but later regarded as chem- 

 ical in character) 58 is entirely obvious. Mansfeld is, how- 

 ever, of the opinion that changes of a more intricate type are 

 also capable of destroying this union and that fatty degen- 

 eration and fat metastasis in pathological conditions (as in 

 phosphorus- and acid-poisoning, starvation, etc.) are closely 

 connected with the process. Since infusion of dilute lactic 

 acid under proper conditions sets free the fat in combina- 

 tion with protein in the blood and enables it to pass out 

 through the capillary wall, Mansfeld regards it probable that 

 the fatty degeneration of phosphorus poisoning is related 

 with the accumulation of lactic acid in the blood. Such an 

 assumption would, however, seem justified only after proof 

 by careful quantitative experiments that the amounts of 

 lactic acid which appear in the blood in phosphorus poisoning 



07 L. Berczeller (F. Tangl'8 Lab., Budapesth), Biochem. Zeitschr., 44, 193, 

 1912. 



58 Boggs and Morris, Jour, of Exper. Med., 11, 563, 1909, who have observed 

 a distinct lipsemia in animals after repeated bleeding, found that the milky 

 serum is not cleared up by shaking with ether, but is readily cleared after 

 adding ammonium oxalate. It would require special study to determine 

 whether the removal of calcium is the essenial point in this procedure and 

 whether we are not rather dealing with some kind of disturbance of the physical- 

 chemical equilibrium. 



