416 FORMATION OF FAT FROM PROTEIN 



opposite, 46 complete proof has been furnished by a series of 

 studies 47 showing that the total amount of fat in animals 

 poisoned by phosphorus does not undergo any increase; 

 there is merely a change in the fat distribution, in conse- 

 quence of which there is more fat accumulated in a number 

 of tissues, above all in the liver. 



Besides, this has been very strikingly confirmed by the 

 recognition that the fat of the phosphorus liver corresponds 

 in its composition with depot-fat, and that if the fat storage- 

 sites be filled with fat of a type foreign to the body and phos- 

 phorus poisoning is then induced, this foreign form of fat 

 will accumulate in the liver. This was shown first by Lebe- 

 deff, employing linseed oil, then by G. Eosenfeld, who used 

 mutton-fat and cocoa-butter. Similar experiments carried 

 out with iodized fat by Gideon Wells 48 gave an uncertain 

 result; while the same experiment by Schwalbe 49 resulted 

 positively. 



Finally G. Eosenfeld, undertook another crucial experi- 

 ment, and showed that the fatty change does not occur in 

 phosphorus poisoning if animals which are very poor in fat 

 be used. The outcome of this experiment proves how fatty 

 change comes to involve the liver in phosphorus poisoning: 

 were we to assume that it is due to a breaking down of protein 

 into fat, then necessarily phosphorus should invariably pro- 

 duce a fatty liver, because the assumed mother substance of 

 the fat, protein, is always present. If the change, however, 

 is the result of a passage of the depot-fat into the liver, the 

 condition must fail to appear if no depot-fat is available for 

 immigration. 50 Actually, too, under these circumstances, it 

 does not appear. 



49 Leo, Polimanti. 



4T Athanasiu (E. Pfliiger's Lab.), Taylor, 1899; F. Kraus and Sommer, 

 1902; J. Barro, Jahresber. f. Tierchem., 31, 75, 1902; Boruttau, Arch, de Fisiol., 

 2, 26, 1904 ; Shibatu Negamachi, Biochem. Zeitschr., 87, 345. 



48 H. G. Wells (Chicago), Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 45, 412, 1905. 



* Schwalbe (Heidelberg), Verh. d. deutsch. pathol. Gesellsch., Kassel, 

 1908, 71. 



60 G. Rosenfeld, Ergebn. d. Physiol., 2', 68, 1903. 



