ETIOLOGY 153 



refer to as "embonpoint") is normal. Healthy, strong children are usually 

 plump when they are born. This fat which the child brings into the world 

 normally increases during its early life, but later it decreases. We see from 

 this that a certain amount of adipose tissue is to be looked upon as normal in 

 the child at birth and for the first few years after birth; indeed not only is 

 it normal but its absence indicates something abnormal. An excessive amount 

 of body fat, however, is morbid and an evil. What produces such an excessive 

 formation of body fat? 



ETIOLOGY 



The CAUSES OP obesity can be best understood if we consider for a moment 

 the process of fattening animals, which forms an important chapter in the 

 science of farming. The stock raiser, whenever he is raising animals for 

 slaughter, endeavors to increase fat as well as to produce-meat. Many experi- 

 ences with animals have shown that fodder deficient in fat as well as that 

 rich in fat will, under some circumstances, produce a profuse accumulation of 

 fat. Naturally, this presupposes that the food introduced exceeds the amount 

 required to maintain the animal, and that albumin products are also present 

 in the food in plentiful amounts. It is true that animals can be fattened 

 with fat alone without the administration of any albumin, but in this case 

 the animal is fed to death. Such experiments are made under conditions which 

 do not come into question in the ordinary fattening of animals, or in the 

 nutrition of the human subject. Apart from their fodder, the manner of life 

 of the animals has a great influence upon the accumulation of fat, and espe- 

 cially the prevention of too great activity. It has been determined by numer- 

 ous and careful experiments that sheep and oxen which have been fattened 

 may be kept very fat for several months on a comparatively small amount of 

 fodder if they are prevented from active body movements and protected from 

 cold. But we should by no means infer from this evidence that in the devel- 

 opment of human obesity too little muscular activity is the only important 

 factor, even if we suppose that the fattening of animals may be regarded 

 as parallel with the development of obesity in man, of which however there 

 can be no doubt. Of course we know that active muscular labor counteracts 

 a too profuse accumulation of fat. Bunge believes that it is quite healthful 

 and normal for man to eat everything that he likes and in any quantity that 

 he pleases, and that in an otherwise normal mode of life this never leads to 

 obesity. Bunge even declares it to be a portentous error to look for the csiuse 

 of obesity in an over-profuse intake of nourishment or even in unsuitable food, 

 i. e., in the too profuse intake of carbohydrates and fat. But his ideas by no 

 means correspond with the facts. Bunge, it is true, does not deny that differ- 

 ent persons are predisposed to obesity from different causes. This well-known 

 fact need not even here be discussed in detail. But the familiar family pre- 

 disposition to obesity cannot be adduced as a proof of Bunge's assertions. 

 The objection is too obvious that laziness and an indisposition to take sufficient 

 muscular exercise are also family traits, and also hereditary, and these may 

 be more important than any predisposition to a too profuse fat deposit. An 



