132 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



form masses. The result of this disposition is that the struc- 

 ture of this tissue is not areolar, but rather resembles that of 

 the fruits of the family of the hesperides, such as oranges and 

 lemons which present in the same way, and very plainly, 

 ^membranous vesicles attached to partitions that divide them. 

 'The fatty vesicles, as well as the grains and the masses which 

 they form, are furnished with small foot-stalks, formed by the 

 vessels situated in the intervals, and may be compared, in this 

 respect, to grapes supported by their pedicles. These vesi- 

 cles, however, are so excessively thin that it is impossible to 

 distinguish their parietes; but there are many certain proofs 

 of their existence. In fact, if the fat were loose or free, it 

 would not form regular and distinct masses. It is an error in 

 Haller and others to pretend that this form is proper to fat or 

 inherent, for it presents no globules, and by itself has no de- 

 termined figure. If we place under the microscope, some of 

 these vesicles plunged into warm water, no oil can be seen on 

 their surface; but on breaking them, a few drops of it escape 

 and float on the surface of the liquid. Add to these considera- 

 tions, that the fat in the living body being fluid, as is proved 

 by its flowing on the division of the tissues, it ought to pass 

 through like serum, if not in health, at least in disease; but 

 this never takes place, and all that has been said about the in- 

 filtration of fat to explain the formation of the pendent mam- 

 mae of certain nations, the salient buttocks of others, the dorsal 

 humps of some animals and the immense tails of others, &c., 

 presents only a collection of contradictory facts and absurd 

 reasonings. Roose and Blumenbach have argued against the 

 existence of these vesicles, from the development of fat in 

 parts were these little apparatuses do not exist ; thence they 

 conclude, that these latter are not necessary to the production 

 of this fluid: fat is, in fact, produced in the cellular tissue, but 

 it then forms vesicles, instead of being simply contained in 

 the open areolse. 



161. The cellular tissue between the adipose vesicles is very 

 delicate, as it commonly is between the more tenuous parts of 

 our organs: these vesicles seem scarcely to adhere to each other, 

 as they may be separated without their opposing any resistance. 



