118 * Case of Abstinence. 



be procured are made use of. Fat is one of the least essential 

 constituents of the body — it is only secreted when the several 

 functions are sluggishly performed — and deposited in different 

 situations, until the exigencies of the system require it to repair 

 the waste of parts, in which decomposition is going on faster 

 than the supplies from without can be elaborated to preserve the 

 due balance between the actions of nutrition and decomposition. 



We find in accordance with these views, that the secretion of 

 fat ceases whenever the muscular or vascular systems are much 

 excited. We all know that a hard working man is hardly ever 

 fat, even when well fed—we also know how soon the fat already 

 secreted is absorbed in consumption and fevers. Fat is there- 

 fore one of the first constituents of the body taken up whenever 

 the animal or vital functions are much excited. It is also soon 

 absorbed, even when the vascular and muscular systems are but 

 little exerted if the supply of food be too scanty. Man and beast 

 soon grow lean on spare diet, no matter how little they may be 

 exercised. Granting that fat may be absorbed and converted in- 

 to nourishment, it will be asked, whether even with its aid, life 

 could have been so long protracted as in the above case without 

 any other assistance than what water and air afford. 



Fat is known to consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the 

 ordinary elements of vegetables, and air contains nitrogen ; fat 

 and air, then, contain the elements of our ordinary food, whether 

 animal or vegetable ; consequently, with the addition of water, 

 they possess the elements of what is found adequate to support the 

 system in the most perfect vigour. That fat is abundantly nou- 

 rishing, is well known : The most perfect chyle has been observed 

 to be formed from fat * A Russian sailor could live on water and 

 oil' alone for weeks. But it will be objected that in such case, 

 the oil is first reduced to the state of chyle ; the objection, how- 

 ever, is not so formidable as it may at first appear. When fat is 

 absorbed from the system, it is not found in the blood in its entire 

 state. It is probable that in the act of absorption it is decomposed, 

 and that its elements form new combinations with the venous 

 blood. It has already been in the state of chyle, in which state it 

 was incorporated with the venous blood, changed by respiration, 

 and separated from the blood by the secreting arteries. It is more 

 than probable that the absorbents, when taking it back again into the 

 circulation, have the power of reducing it into the same elements of 



