32 PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 



Other favouring conditions for the development of fat 

 are equability of temperament, the cold, impassive 

 " phlegmatic " rather than the excitable and nervous ; and 

 an impoverished condition of blood whereby its functions 

 are ill-performed, and that function of getting rid of waste 

 material also. 



Corpulence is an attribute which is by no means 

 unmixed with the reverse of blessings. Its greatest evil is 

 that its possessor when attacked by acute disease is less 

 fitted to contend against it than his sparer neighbour. 

 This may be in part because, as we have seen, habits 

 unhealthy in themselves are so often at the foundation of 

 the corpulent state. But even apart from this and from 

 the difficulties the fat man has to. contend with when laid 

 low by illness, it must be generally admitted that his power 

 of resistance to acute inflammatory disorder is but slight. 



We come now to conditions that are abnormal, both 

 in diminution and in excess of the subcutaneous fatty 

 layer. Many diseases, nay most, are accompanied by 

 "loss of flesh." In some affections this wasting takes 

 place rapidly e.g., in the acute febrile diseases ; in others 

 it is slowly progressive. It depends upon two factors, one 

 excessive consumption of tissue, the other diminished ca- 

 pability of assimilation and of nutrition. In a few maladies 

 both these factors are at work; with a chronic wasting 

 disease, such as consumption, it is the latter only or 



