306 THE TISSUES. 



Growth of Adipose Tissue. 



Hassall maintains that the fat-cells of each individual persist 

 through life ; they being merely larger or smaller, or more or less 

 full, in the varying states of the adipose tissue. In cases of extreme 

 corpulence, however, there can be no reasonable doubt of their in- 

 crease in number. Hassall finds the fat-cells several times smaller 

 in infants than in adults; and they doubtless increase after birth, 

 as do the cartilage-cells (though probably more slowly), in size 

 rather than in number. 



The growth, however, appears to proceed at different rates in 

 different parts of the body after birth, and also in the same part in 

 different persons of the same age. Harting states that in the adult 

 the fat-cells in the orbit are twice as- large, and in the palm three 

 times as large, as at birth. 



Regeneration. It is doubtful if fat-cells -are reproduced after a 

 mass of the adipose tissue is removed ; the loss being repaired by a 

 more condensed areolar tissue, such as usually constitutes the sub- 

 stance of cicatrices. 



Pathological States and New Formations of the Adipose Tissue. 



1. Atrophy of the adipose tissue is one of its most common patho- 

 logical conditions, occurring in all cases of emaciation, and in ana- 

 sarca. Here either the cells are partially collapsed, or their contents 

 become changed. Kolliker specifies the following conditions of the 

 contents of atrophied fat-cells : 



1. The cells are granular, containing numerous small fat-drops, 

 forming whitish-yellow clustered lobules. 



2. Cells containing a dark globule only of fat, the rest of their 

 contents being removed. 



3. Cells containing serum alone, the fat having been entirely re- 

 moved. 



The last two varieties occur in anasarca. Kolliker states that in 

 this disease the cells also assume a stellate form (with from three to 

 five processes), and become diminished in size. Wedl, however, 

 suggests that these are young cells of white fibrous tissue. 



When the fat leaves the cells, it must first be mixed with the 

 intercellular fluid, and then reabsorbed by the lymphatics. It is 

 the accumulation of the serous fluid in the areolae of the areolar 

 tissue in dropsy, which causes the fat in the cells to disappear, partly 

 perhaps by exosmosis; when the fat-cells become entirely filled, in 

 turn, with the serous fluid. 



