ADIPOSE TISSUE. 301 



sink in water. And a Spanish general, who was enormously cor- 

 pulent, is said to have removed the fat so rapidly by drinking large 

 quantities of vinegar, that he could wrap the loose skin around him 

 like a cloak. 



Such extreme degrees of obesity must, however, be regarded 

 rather as a pathological condition, and which is incompatible with 

 a long life. So great a weight of fat encumbers the heart especially, 

 and hence the pulse becomes feeble, and loss of blood is not well 

 tolerated. In view of the ultimate consequences, therefore, this 

 condition (called polysarcia) often requires the adoption of means 

 to diminish the amount of fat. The author is cognizant of an in- 

 stance in which this object was very promptly secured by the use 

 of nitric acid. But it has been shown by Dr. T. K. Chambers, in 

 his "Lectures on Obesity," 1 that the most reliable remedy in such 

 cases is the liquor potassae. It is possible that the fat is reabsorbed 

 into the blood from the fat cells, to combine with the potassa and 

 form a soap or emulsion; after which it is burned up by combina- 

 tion with oxygen, as a calorific element. For such an absorption 

 into the blood, doubtless occurs from the fat-cells in cases of emacia- 

 tion; and Henle has seen the blood so laden with fat after a profuse 

 hemorrhage, that it formed a distinct pellicle on its surface. " 



A superabundance of adipose tissue, or a privation of it, has 

 alike, in all ages, been regarded as a legitimate subject of derision. 

 Sir John Falstaff is the impersonation of the class included in the 

 first category, except perhaps in respect to his activity; who repre- 

 sents himself as being "a man of continual dissolution and thaw," 

 and who had "a kind of alacrity in sinking." 2 The dramatist has, 

 however, committed a physiological mistake in the last expression, 

 as has already been shown. He has, however, in another passage, 

 recognized the effect, in diminishing the deposit of fat, of intense 

 and continued intellectual effort and anxiety,' and consequent loss 

 of sleep: 



" Let me have men about me that are fat ; 

 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights. 

 Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look : 

 He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." 



Julius Ccesar, act i. sc. 2. 



1 London Lancet, for 1850, vol. ii. p. 443. 



2 " You may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking." 

 "Think of that; a man of my kidney think of that; that am as subject to 



heat as butter ; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It was a miracle to 

 escape suffocation." Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii. sc. 5. 



