OP THE COMMON ADIPOSE TISSUE. 131 



nerves as the ischiatic nerve have small masses of it between 

 their fasciculi. The fat in the bones is considered separately. 



158. In particular parts no fat is to be found, as under the 

 skin of the cranium, of the nose, of the ear, of the chin, where 

 the median line is entirely deprived of it; there is also but 

 very little between the skin and cuticle. Scarcely any is found 

 opposite the insertion of the deltoid, occasioning that depres- 

 sion which exists in even the fattest subjects. This fluid is 

 not to be found, about the long and thin tendons, nor in the 

 spaces of those muscles which produce the great movements, 

 as between the triceps and anterior rectus femoris, the biceps 

 and the brachialis externus, the gastrocnemii and the soleus. 

 The substance of the viscera has seldom any fat, nor is there 

 any in the parietes of the stomach, or of the uterus, in the liver 

 or the spleen. The eye-lids, the penis, the small labia pu- 

 dendi, are also deprived of it. The quantity of fat existing 

 in the human body, greatly varies ; but in some parts of it 

 none can be found, not even in the most excessive state of 

 obesity, while on the contrary there are others, in which the 

 most complete marasmus never cause it to disappear entire- 

 ly. In the adult man of ordinary plumpness, the fat forms 

 about the twentieth part of the weight of the body. 



159. The fatty tissue is generally of a yellowish white 

 colour and of a soft consistence, but varying according to the 

 region to which it belongs, the age, &c. 



160. Whatever be the external form of the adipose tissue, 

 the masses it presents are divided into smaller ones, from the 

 size of a pea to that of a filbert, smaller about the head, larger 

 round the kidneys. These masses are buried in the cellular 

 tissue; their form varies; generally rounded, it is elongated, 

 ovoid on the median line of the abdomen, one of the eMremi- 

 ties holding by the skin, the other by the aponeuroses. By 

 dissection we can reduce them into adipose lobules or grains, 

 which examined microscopically, appear themselves to be 

 composed of an infinitude of little vesicles, from the sixth to 

 the eight hundredth part of an inch in diameter. We may then 

 consider the fatty tissue as composed of conglomerate vesi- 

 cles, united in grains, which in their turn, are collected to 



