OP THE COMMON ADIPOSE TISSUE. 139 



they have been found weighing from forty to fifty pounds. 

 On the exterior of the serous membranes their figure is gene- 

 rally ovoid, one of their extremities being attached to the 

 membrane, the other to the skin; outside the peritoneum this 

 tumour constitutes the fatty hernia or liparocele. The struc- 

 ture of the lipoma is analogous to that of the fat; the vesicles, 

 according to Munro, having the same volume as the latter, 

 being only more numerous. A cellular envelope similar to 

 that which surrounds the muscles, and which is sometimes so 

 dense as to approximate it to the fibrous membranes and the 

 cysts, is generally found round the tumour. This membrane 

 contains vessels which are tolerably apparent. The lipoma, 

 outside the peritoneum, when opened, sometimes exhibits the 

 aspect of the epiploon: generally speaking however these 

 tumours contain fewer vessels than others of the same volume. 



Authors have spoken of fatty transformations of the mucles. 

 The following is what observation has taught me on this sub- 

 ject. In palsy the muscles often become perfectly white; 

 their fibres diminish in volume at the same time, and as this 

 alteration is chiefly observed in old persons, in whom the fat 

 is most abundant internally and as the part being at rest aug- 

 ments the quantity of this fluid, there results a fatty appear- 

 ance of the muscles that has been mistaken for a true fatty 

 transformation. But their proper fibrine is still to be found 

 in them, by submitting them to the action of alcohol, or of an 

 absorbant paper when boiled in water or exposed to the fire. 

 There is then merely a discolouration of the muscles, but no 

 fatty transformation. M. Vauquelin and M. Chevreul, in the 

 analysis they made of these muscles, obtained similar results. 

 Neither does this fatty transformation exist in the bones. The 

 marrow which occupies their interior may become more abun- 

 dant. The liver is sometimes the seat of a fatty transforma- 

 tion that has not been sufficiently examined. 



Inflammations which occur in regions where the adipose 

 tissue is very abundant, have a peculiar tendency to terminate 

 in gangrene. This observation, which has long been made 

 upon the very fat animals, such as hogs and sheep, when they 

 are stung, is equally correct as relates to man, in whom wounds 



