TEGUMENTAL SYSTEM. 417 



Nature seems to have given it to the young of most other ani- 

 mals. We frequently see very fat young horses ; indeed, most 

 of the horses three and four years old, purchased of dealers, or 

 of the breeders, have considerable depositions of fat between the 

 skin and abdominal muscles ; or, to express ourselves in the 

 jockey's phrase, are "fat upon the rib." The prodigious bulk 

 that beasts, fed for the purpose, will attain, is almost incredible : 

 a prize ox has weighed two hundred stone* ; and a prize sheep, 

 forty stone*. In the human subject also, we have had astonish- 

 ing instances of corpulence : Lambert weighed fifty-two stonef. 

 In respect of the latter, it has been remarked, that fat people 

 do not, in general, live to a great age. 



Production. — As the cells of the cellular membrane are filled 

 with serous exhalation, so in like manner do we conceive those 

 of the adipose to be with fat : we have no anatomical proof of 

 the existence of any distinct gland for the purpose, but we sup- 

 pose it to be a secretion from the arterial ramifications distri- 

 buted over the interior of the cells. 



Deposition. — In almost all animals that are healthy, copious 

 food of a nutritive kind, combined with little labour, will increase 

 the deposition of fat ; but in the human subject, and, indeed, in 

 many quadrupeds, the animal spirits appear to have very con- 

 siderable influence over this secretion. We see numberless 

 examples of people, who appear to enjoy the best bodily health, 

 and yet are constantly meagre, though their food and habits of 

 life tend to an opposite state ; and we may occasionally observe 

 horses and dogs, particularly circumstanced, in which, from 

 their natural leanness, or poorness upon the rib, something of a 

 mental nature would appear to be operating; indeed, it is a 

 well known truth, that if you separate a horse of an irritable 

 disposition from others with whom he is accustomed to be 

 stalled, he will fall away in condition, in consequence of (to use 

 the vulgar Q\}^xe<s,s,\on) fretting from being alone ; and so much 

 does this act of segregation aliiect some, that I have known them 

 even refuse their food. Those horses are commonly the fattest 

 that are fed on easily digestible food — such as bruised or scalded 

 corn, roots of a nutritive kind, chopped hay, 8cc. and that have 

 little or no exercise : a fact well appreciated by the horse-dealer, 

 whose horses are^zV/e And ft for sale, but incapable of fatigue. 



Absorption. — Constitutional diseases, generally speaking, ex- 

 tenuate the body, and more particularly such as are of the acute or 

 painful description; hence, the irritation caused by a simple 

 puncture in the foot, will, if it be of long duration, induce a state 

 of emaciation : under which circumstances, the absorbents are 

 supposed to act with more than ordinary effect, and to take 

 up the adeps from the interioi of its cells. 



* A stone is 8lfe. f Horseman's weight, I4ft» to the stone. 



3 H 



