THE FAT. 299 



the mons veneris, where it forms a peculiar and circumscribed 

 lump. d 



" Its consistence varies in different parts. More fluid in the 

 orbit, it is harder and more like suet around the kidneys. 



" It is of late formation in the fretus ; scarcely any trace of 

 its existence is discoverable before the fifth month after con- 

 ception." 



It is accumulated under the skin chiefly in the first years of 

 childhood, and again between the fortieth year and old age. 

 Women grow fat earlier, and especially if married. In old 

 people it gradually lessens, like all solids and fluids, till they 

 are wrinkled, shrivelled, and very light. 



" There have been controversies respecting the mode of its 

 secretion : some, as W. Hunter, contending that it is formed by 

 peculiar glands ; others, that it merely transudes from the arte- 

 ries. Besides other arguments in favour of the latter opinion, 

 we may urge the morbid existence of fat in parts naturally 

 destitute of it ; a fact more explicable on the supposition of 

 diseased action of vessels, than of the preternatural formation of 

 glands. Thus, it is occasionally formed in the globe of the eye; 

 a lump of hard fat generally fills up the place of an extirpated 

 testicle; and steatoms have been found in almost every cavity of 

 the body." 



Dr. William Hunter contended that the fat is not contained 

 in the same cells of the cellular membrane as the fluid of ana- 

 sarca, but in distinct vesicles : because, 1. The marrow, which 

 strongly resembles fat, is contained in vesicles or bags ; 2. Parts 

 which are not loaded with anasarca, as the eyelids, never contain 

 fat; 3. In dropsical subjects, exhausted of the fat, the membrane 

 which contained fat appears still very different from the other, 

 that immediately under the skin, for example, being thin and 

 collapsed, while that opposite the tendon of the latissimus dorsi is 

 thick and gelatinous; 4. Parts which become filled with fluid 

 from gravitation in dropsy, as the penis and scrotum, never con- 

 tain a drop of oil in the fattest persons ; 5. Dropsical parts pit 

 on pressure ; the fluid disperses, and returns when the pressure 



the celebrated Fourcroy, that fat is an oily matter, formed at the extremities of 

 arteries, and at the greatest distance from the centre of motion and animal heat. 

 See his Philosophic Chimigue, p. 112." 



d " I found this still more distinct in the body of a female of the species simia 

 cynomolgus, from which, by means of cold, I was able to remove it with its sym- 

 metrical form entire." 



