66 PATHOLOGY. 



Fatty infiltration is due to an increase of oleaginous mate- 

 rials in the blood, which arises from high feeding and want 

 of exercise. It occurs as a physiological process in the 

 fattening of animals, where the connective tissue becomes 

 fdled with fat. 



In the human being it has been observed that this form of 

 infiltration is occasionally owing to the presence of fat in the 

 blood, arising from its absorjDtion from some particular tissue 

 and its deposition in another : for example, the general emacia- 

 tion of pulmonary phthisis is sometimes associated with fatty 

 infiltration of the liver. " Why the deposition should take place 

 in certain tissues, and the fat be removed from some and depo- 

 sited in others, is not known." — (Geeen.) Fatty infiltration, 

 more particularly of the liver, has occurred in my experience 

 involving legal points of some consequence. In two cases which 

 more particularly occur to me, the animals died within a few 

 days after being purchased. In one case the liver weighed 

 thirty-five pounds, was of an opaque yellowish white colour, its 

 surface smooth, the edges round and thick, doughy to the touch, 

 pitted on pressure, and when cut into, the knife was coated with 

 oil, which oozed from the cut surfaces pretty freely. In the 

 second case, death occurred twelve days after purchase : the liver 

 was not so large as in the former instance, the deposition occur- 

 ing more as isolated patches than as a general infiltration. In 

 both instances the purchasers succeeded in obtaining a return 

 of the purchase-money. Fatty infiltration is caused by high 

 feeding, more particularly by food containing an excess of the 

 hydrocarbons — such as the oilcakes — and is apt to occur in 

 animals quicldy prepared and made fat for sale. It also frequently 

 occurs in very highly fed cart-horses employed for slow work, 

 and often causes death by the liver enlarging to such an extent 

 as to burst its capsule. 



Why the liver should suffer from the accumulation of fat, 

 is explained by the fact that when animals are fed on hydro- 

 carbonaceous food, an excess of fat in the blood is the 

 consequence, such fat being, before it is finally disposed of, 

 deposited in the hepatic cells, more particularly in those cells 

 in close contact with the capillaries of the vena porta, at the 

 circumference of the hepatic lobules. This temporary infiltration 

 occurs after every meal, and the fat passes from the cells at the 



