FATTY CHANGE OF THE KIDNEY 419 



thought of as unattended by serious change of the physical 

 and chemical characters of the hepatic proteins, goes with- 

 out saying. The view indicated by Mansfield therefore is 

 decidedly plausible, this writer from his observations upon 

 fat combination (v. supra, p. 370) believing it quite char- 

 acteristic of phosphorus poisoning that there should exist a 

 loss in the power of the haemic and tissue proteins to fix fat. 58 

 The author would readily believe that the assumption of 

 such a change in the ability to fix fat would make it possible 

 to regard the features of fat phanerosis and those of fat 

 migration from a common point of view. The fundamental 

 cause which destroys the union between the fats and the cells 

 of the fat depots, and brings about mobilization of the latter 

 as well as fatty infiltration of the liver, may very well be the 

 same as that which breaks up the bond between the tissue- 

 fat and the tissue-cells, and which in this way induces fat 

 phanerosis (that is, brings into view fat which was previ- 

 ously invisible). In this sense we may, therefore, perhaps 

 look upon fatty infiltration and fat phanerosis as different 

 phases of one and the same process. 



" Fatty degeneration " is by no means necessarily con- 

 fined to the liver, but may involve other structures as well, 

 as the cardiac and skeletal musculature, the kidneys, the 

 lungs and the epithelium of the intestinal tract. 59 



Fatty Change of the Kidney. A few remarks at this 

 point in reference to fatty change of the kidneys may not be 

 inappropriate. 



Eosenf eld and several other investigators had concluded 

 that the histological observations of a fatty change of a 

 kidney could not be regarded as having any real reference to 

 the actual amount of fat in the organ ; that, although a kid- 

 ney may appear to be "fatty degenerated," actually its fat 



88 G. Mansfeld ( in collaboration with E. Hamburger and F. Verzar, Phar- 

 macolog. Instit., Budapesth), Pfluger's Arch., 129, 46, 1909. 



J. and S. Bondi (v. Noorden's Clinic and R. Paltauf's Lab. ; Vienna), 

 Zeitschr. f. exper. Pathol., 6, 254, 1909. 



