different persons: there is situated below the skin a thick layer of cellu- 

 lar substance (fatty pannick;') it is found, in considerable quantity, be- 

 tween the interstices of the muscles, along the blood-vessels, near the 

 articulations, and in the vicinity of Certain organs, as the eyes, the kid- 

 neys, and the breasts. That which fills the bottom of the orbit, and 

 which surrounds the eye-ball, is softish and almost fluid; that which en- 

 velopes the kidneys and the great joints is, on the contrary, of the con- 

 sistence of suet. Between these two extremes there are many gradations, 

 and it may be said, that the animal in question, is not exactly the same 

 in any two different parts of the body. The high temperature of the hu- 

 man body maintains it in a state of semi-fluidity, as may be observed in 

 surgical operations. 



In some parts, it is even absolutely fluid, but its nature is then observed 

 to be greatly changed; it no longer contains any oily substances, and differs 

 but littte Yrom a mere aqueous gelatine. Thus, the fluid in the cellular 

 tissue of the eye-lids, of the scrotum, Sec. has been considered by several 

 physiologists, as absolutely different from fat. It may not be amiss to 

 observe, that the lamina of the cellular tissue, in such circumstances, 

 yield more readily to extension, present a greater surface, form mem- 

 branous expansions^, and circumscribe ceHs~of considerable size, so that 

 the differences in the secretion, perfectly coincide with the difference of 

 structure. It may further^oe observed, that the functions of the eye-lids 

 and of the penis required that they should not contain any fat. Conside- 

 rable deformity, when the person grew fat, would have been the conse- 

 quence of the increased bulk of these parts, and besides, the folds of the 

 skin would not have that free motion which their functions require. No 

 real adeps is ever found within the skull, and the utility of this condition 

 is very obvious. To how many dangers would not life have been exposed, 

 if a fluid so varying in quantity, and the amount of which may be trebled, 

 in a very short lapse of time, had been deposited into a cavity accurately 

 filled by an organ which is affected by the slightest compression ? 



In an adult male, of moderate corpulence, the proportion of adeps is 

 about one-twentieth of the weight of the whole body; it is greater, in 

 proportion, in children and in females ; for, its quantity is always relative 

 to the energy of the functions of assimilation. When digestion and ab- 

 sorption are performed with great activity, fat accumulates within the 

 cellular substance: atd if it be considered that it is but imperfectly ani- 

 malized, that it bears ttie most striking analogy to the oils extracted from 

 plants; that it contains \ry little azote, and much hydrogen and carbon, 

 like all other oily substances, since on distillation it is decomposed, and 

 yields water and carbonic a*id, with a very small quantity of ammonia; 

 that its proportions are very variable, and may be considerably increased 

 or diminished, without manifestly impairing the order of the functions; 

 that animals that spend a great ^art of their life without eating, seem to 

 exist during that torpid state, on the fat which they have previously ac- 

 cumulated in certain parts of their body*; one will be led to think, that 



* Marmots and dormice become prodigiously fat during the autumn; they then take 

 to their holes and live in them during the six winter months, on the fat which is accu- 

 mulated in all their organs. There is most fat collected in the abdomen, in which the 

 epiploon forms masses of a considerable size. When, in the spring, their torpor ceases, 

 and they awaken from their sleep, they are for the most part, exceedingly emaciated. 

 Author's Note, 



