ig6 Rctrogrcssiz'c Processes. 



brought to the hver (via blood or lymph) after removal from 

 oth^r parts of the body (subcutaneous tissue), because when 

 sheep- fat was injected subcutaneously it later appeared in the liver 

 and formed the principal part of the fat of this organ. 



Outside the body fat may be produced from proteid, as shown 

 by the investigations of \'oit, Pettenkofer and \"irchow. Examples 

 are met with in the formation of a peculiar wax-like substance 

 known as adipocere (adeps, fat, and eera. wax) in corpses, a fatty 

 change taking place in those parts of the body lying in water or 

 moist earth, as the result of which they acquire a spermaceti-like 

 nature : in fatty transformation of fat-free pulmonary tissue pre- 

 served in water (E. \'oit) ; in the possibility of fattening animals on 

 purely proteid diet (\^oit, Pettenkofer, Cremer). Pfliiger doubts, 

 however, whether in the body fat is formed from proteid decomposi- 

 tion. [The prevailing opinion is that direct transformation of pro- 

 teid into fat does not occur, and that when this is apparently the 

 case, as in the author's examples, there are intervening stages or spe- 

 cial causes. Thus glycogen may be formed from proteid by metabolic 

 changes and the possibility of fat production from this polysac- 

 charid must be apparent; or bacterial agency may be assumed in 

 many instances. The substance of the bacteria may here be held 

 a possible source of fat. and. too, their enzymes seem capable of 

 splitting the proteid molecule, with possible ultimate fat formation. 

 In one of these indirect modes it may be accepted that fat may be 

 produced from proteid ; and to whatever degree these may apply to 

 pathological changes in the living body it may be held that the fat 

 in question may have had an original proteid origin. 



There is another possibility, related, it is true, with the following 

 paragraph, but not distinctly indicated by Professor Kitt, which 

 should be held as a possible explanation of the appearance of fat 

 in fatty degenerated cells. Fat combined in the general protoplas- 

 mic molecule may exist without being visible ; in case of disintegra- 

 tion of the protoplasm this combined fat may be set free and be- 

 come apparent. 



And at last from the standpoint of application to the clinical 

 importance of the case, the really important point is not so much 

 the discovery of the fat in the cell as it is the fact that the cell 

 is undergoing a disintegrating process — and it is this which should 

 always be kept in mind. Whatever be the theoretical claims for 

 considering fatty infiltration and fatty metamorphosis together, 

 the student should, for practical purposes, hold them clearly sep- 



