FATTY METAMORPHOSIS 405 



lor^^ advanced this explanation, and supported it experimentally by 

 showing that during fatty degeneration this protected fat actually is 

 liberated, some two-thirds becoming ether-soluble in an experiment 

 performed with phosphorus-poisoned frogs. Mansfeld""' also found 

 that in animals poisoned with phosphorus, the proportion of fat which 

 is present in a form free from protein union in both blood and viscera, 

 is increased, while the firmly bound fat is decreased. As further 

 support may be mentioned the fact that organs undergoing experi- 

 mental autolysis show microscopically an apparently typical fatty 

 degeneration, although analyses show that no actual increase in fat 

 occurs. ^^ 



Relation of Anatomical to Chemical Changes. — From the 

 facts brought out in these various experiments we must consider 

 that the anatomically estabhshed condition of "fatty degeneration" 

 represents either or both of two conditions: (1) It may result from 

 an increase in the normal quantity of fat in an organ undergoing paren- 

 chymatous degeneration, through an infiltration of fat from the out- 

 side; this is particularly true of the fatty degeneration of the hver, 

 presumably because the hver normally receives the relatively saturated 

 body fats to work them over into the more labile desaturated fats; (2) 

 there may be no increase in the total amount of fat, but the invisible 

 fat becomes visible through autolj^sis or hydration changes in the cell 

 proteins. Thus, Bainbridge and Leathes'^ found that after ligation 

 of the hepatic artery there is a marked fatty degeneration of the hver, 

 without an increase in the amount of fat according to analysis. (3) 

 Finally, of course, both factors may occur together. Of these various 

 forms, in only the first would the chemist consider the organ "fatty, " 

 although from a morphological standpoint the second form is entitled 

 to rank as a true "fatty degeneration," and the form that will occur 

 seems not to depend upon the cause of the cell injurj^, but rather upon 

 the organ under consideration. In a studj'- of the relation of the mor- 

 phological to the chemical changes Rosenfeld^^ arrived at the following 

 results : 



Normal human hearts contain, on an average, 15.4 per cent, of lip- 

 ins; the hearts showing fatty degeneration contain 20.7 per cent, on an 

 average. -° The pancreas, which normally contains 15.8-17.4 per 



'* Jour. Med. Research, 1903 (9), 59. 



" Pfluger's Arch., 1909 (129), 63. 



'' Dietrich, Arb. path. Inst. Tubingen, 1906 (5), H. 3; Hess and Saxl, Virchow's 

 Arch., 1910 (202), 149; Ohta, Biochem. Zeit., 1910 (29), 1; Shibata, ibid., 1911 

 (31), 321. The significance of the increase of lipins observed in perfused kidneys 

 by Gross and Vorpahl is made doubtful by the article of Underhill and Hendrix. 

 Jour. Biol. Chem., 1915 (22), 471. 



" Bioehem. Jour., 1906 (2), 25. 



" Berl. klin. Woch., 1904 (41),587. 



^° The amount of phospho-lipins in the heart is usually nearly constant, but 

 alimentary fat may accumulate in the myocardium under certain conditions. 

 See Wegelin, Berl. klin. Woch., 1913 (50), 2125; Bullard, Amer. Jour. Anat., 

 1916 (19), 1. 



