I'Al II()I.(K1/<'M. J-'AT ACCVMILATION 399 



molecules of stearic, palmitic, and oleic acids; l)ut wc have no proof 

 that either of tliese i)roces.ses occurs in the normal cell or in the cell 

 that is undergoing degeneration. 



PATHOLOGICAL FAT ACCUMULATION 



For a long time fatty degeneration was looked upon as one of the 

 chief evidences that fat was formed directly from protein, for the 

 cell protoplasm seemed, morphologically, to be changed directly into 

 fat in this process. Additional support was also claimed from the 

 sujijiosed increase in fat in the ripening of cheese ; ^ from the forma- 

 tion of abundant fat by maggots living in fat-poor blood or fibrin ; 

 and by the apparent conversion of proteins into fatty acids and soaps 

 in the postmortem change, aclipocere. But it has now been well 

 established that there is no true conversion of protein into fat in 

 the fatty degeneration produced experimentally by poisoning with 

 pho-sphonis, etc.,* and the other supposed instances of fat-formation 

 above cited have been discredited by various methods which it will 

 not serve our purpose to discuss here, beyond mentioning that one of 

 the chief sources of error lies in the fact that many fungi and bac- 

 teria ^ can form fat from protein. 



It having been rendered probable that fat was not formed by dis- 

 integration of the protein of the degenerating cells, it remained to de- 

 termine what the source of the fat observed in the cells under patho- 

 logical conditions might be. and this part of the problem has been 

 largely cleared up by Rosenfeld. This investigator proceeded as fol- 

 lows: Animals were starved until they were extremely poor in fat, 

 then fed upon easily identified foreign fats, such as mutton tallow 

 (which has a high melting-point and can combine with little iodin) 

 or linseed oil (which has a low melting-point and can combine with. 

 much iodin). The animals under these conditions laid up in their 

 fat depots, including the liver as well as the subcutaneous tissues, 

 large quantities of these foreign fats. By starving again for a few 

 days the foreign fat was removed from the liver, leaving still a large 

 amount in the other storehouses, and the animals were then poisoned 

 with phosphorus or other poisons that cause a typical fatty degener- 

 ation of the liver and other viscera. When the fat was extracted from 

 the fatty liver of these animals, it was found that the new fat that 

 had appeared in the liver during the process was not normal dog fat 

 C which it should have been if formed by degeneration of the cell pro- 

 teins), but was, in part, of the same type as the foreign fat which 

 the animals had deposited in their subcutaneous tissues and other fat 



3 Even tlie increase of fat in ripcninsr cheese is doiilitful (Xierenstein. Proc. 

 Royal Soc. B., 1911 (S.3). .301: Kondo. P.iochem. Zeit.. 1014 (50), 113). 



4 See Tavlor, Jour. Exp. :Med., 1800 (4), 300; Shihata, Biochem. Zeit., 1011 

 (37), 345. 



5 See Beebe and Buxton, Amer. Jour, of Plivsiol., 1005 (12), 466; Slosse, Arch. 

 Internat. Physiol., 1004 (1), 348. 



