918 NUTRITION AND HEAT REGULATION. 



tissues of the animals.* Linseed oil, rape-seed oil, and mutton-fat 

 were used in these experiments. Secondly, it has been made 

 probable by feeding experiments that the normal fat of the food 

 undergoes a similar fate. Thus, Hofmann used a dog weighing 

 26 kgms. and allowed it to starve until its weight was reduced to 

 16 kgms. It was then fed for five days on a little meat and large 

 quantities of fat. At the end of that time it was killed and analyzed. 

 The body contained 1353 gms. of fat, of which only 131 gms. could 

 have come from the protein used, assuming that this material 

 can serve as a fat former. Much of the fat found, therefore, was 

 probably derived from the fat of the food. 



Origin of Body Fat from Carbohydrates. That the body 

 fat may have this origin has been made probable or certain by 

 feeding experiments. Thus, Rubner fed a dog (5.89 kgms.) for 

 two days on a diet of sugar, starch, and fat whose total carbon 

 content was equal to 176.6 gms. During this period the animal 

 excreted 87.1 gms. of carbon. There were retained in the body, 

 therefore, 89.5 gms. carbon. The fat fed, 4.7 gms., contained 

 (4.7 X 0.77) 3.6 gms. C. The total nitrogen excreted during this 

 period was 2.55 gms., which indicated a metabolism, therefore, of 

 16 gms. (2.55 X 6.25) of body protein. Making the improbable 

 assumption that all of the carbon of this protein was retained in 

 the body, this would account for 8.32 gms. C (16 X 0.52); so that 

 3.6 + 8.32 or 12 gms. C might have originated from sources other 

 than the carbohydrate of the food, leaving, therefore, 89.5 12 

 or 77.5 gms. of C, which could have arisen only from the carbohy- 

 drate. This quantity of carbon could have been retained only as 

 glycogen or fat. Allowing for the greatest possible storage of 

 glycogen, 78 gms. or 34.6 gms. C, there would still remain 42.9 gms. 

 of C, which could have been retained only as fat. Numerous other 

 fattening experiments of different kinds have been made in which 

 it has been shown that the fat laid on by the animal could not be 

 accounted for by the fat of the food, nor by assuming with Voit that 

 it originated from the protein. The combined testimony of these 

 experiments have satisfied physiologists that the tissues can pro- 

 duce fat from sugar. The chemistry of the change is not under- 

 stood and cannot be imitated in the laboratory, but it is evident 

 that in the long run it involves a series of important reductions, 

 since in the end the oxygen-rich sugar is transformed to an oxygen- 

 poor fat. In the sugar the oxygen constitutes 53 per cent, of the 

 molecule, while in fat it forms only 1 1 .5 per cent. The oxygen split 

 off in the series of changes should appear as H 2 O and C0 2 , and in 

 accordance with this view it is found experimentally that when 



*Lebedeff, "Centralblatt f. die med. Wiss.," 1881, and Munk, "Vir- 

 chow's Archiv," 95, 407, 1884. 



