424 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



being deposited between and around the different organs of the body, affords them 

 support, and protects them from the injurious effects of pressure. Further, being a 

 bad conductor of heat, the fat beneath the skin serves to some extent as a means of 

 retaining the warmth of the body. But the most important use of fat is seen in 

 what occurs during the process of nutrition, for when more fat-forming material is 

 taken into the system than is absolutely required for the maintenance of the body, 

 it is stored up and laid by in the form of fat, to become available for use when the 

 expenditure exceeds the immediate supply. When the direct supply of nourishment 

 is cut off by withholding it, or by interruption of the process of digestion, Nature has 

 recourse to that which has been laid up in reserve in the form of fat. As every one 

 knows, in the wasting of the body which ensues as the result of starvation, fat is 

 the part first consumed. 



Although the uses of fat are so many, and although it is such a valuable con- 

 stituent of the body, it when in excess becomes not only burdensome and unsightly, 

 but a real and serious evil. 



It has been estimated that the mean quantity of fat in the body of a man should 

 be about one-twentieth of his weight, and in a woman 'about one-sixteenth ; but 

 from what we have said, it is obvious that the proportion must be subject to great 

 fluctuation. 



Obesity is not peculiar to any particular period of life. Age, however, does 

 undoubtedly exercise a considerable influence on the production of fat for example, 

 children are usually relatively fatter than adults j and, again, after the middle period 

 of life fat often accumulates in large quantities. Females are more predisposed to 

 the occurrence of obesity than are men, and women who have never borne children 

 seem to be more frequently affected than those who have had several pregnancies 

 or rather perhaps, we should say, than those who have had the cares and anxieties 

 of bringing up a large family. It is said that hereditary tendency exercises a marked 

 influence in the production of corpulence, and this statement is in conformity with 

 our every-day experience. Race, again, is an important element in the question : 

 the Americans are remarkable for their thinness, and the Arabs are almost destitute 

 of fat ; whilst on the other hand Europeans, and more especially the English and 

 Dutch, are proverbial for the fulness of their figures. In Hottentot women, fat 

 accumulates largely in the neighbourhood of the posterior region, so as to form a 

 considerable prominence : and it is said, we know not with what truth, that if they 

 fall down on the side of a hill they experience considerable difficulty in getting up 

 again. Individual peculiarity or idiosyncrasy comes in as an important factor in 

 the production of obesity. Some people are naturally fat, others lean ; some become 

 corpulent on a moderate diet, others remain thin when reared in the midst of plenty 

 and in the lap of luxury. Over-feeding will in the majority of people induce fat, 

 and so will the habit of taking a great deal to drink, though it be only water. Fat 

 people are not always great eaters, but they have invariably a great capacity for 

 imbibing fluids. Farinaceous and vegetable foods are fattening, and sugar in all 

 forms is an especially powerful agent in the production of fat. In sugar-growing 

 countries, the negroes and cattle employed on the plantations grow remarkably stout 

 while the cane is being gathered and the sugar extracted. During this harvest the 



