FATTY DEGENERATIONS. 
197 
fibres of the heart are very subject to fatty degenera- 
tion, and for our knowledge of this disease we are, 
in a great measure, indebted to the labours of Dr. 
Ormerod; but the subject has been lately investigated 
with great care by Dr. Richard Quain; and in his 
paper, published in the fifteenth volume of the “Medico- 
Chirurgical Transactions,” you will find all that is at 
present known respecting it. A very excellent example 
of fatty degeneration of the muscular fibres of the heart, 
is one taken from a man a hundred and three years 
of age, for which I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. 
Edward Smith, it exhibits the transverse striae in some 
parts, but in others, as in Fig. 142 , A, these are replaced 
by highly-refracting globules of oil. I have lately had 
the opportunity of examining a most interesting case in 
which the disease was present in the voluntary muscles 
of the extremities. In one family of nine children, six of 
whom were girls and three boys, all the girls were per- 
fectly healthy, but the boys, on arriving at the age of 
three or four, began to lose the use of their limbs. 
One of them, the eldest, has lately died, and, on ex- 
amination of the brain and spinal chord, both were 
found to be healthy, the muscle, however, had not 
only undergone fatty degeneration, but the fasciculi 
themselves were much diminished in size, which 
would, of course, account for the want of power in 
the limbs. This disease from the first was supposed 
to be seated in some part of the nervous system, pro- 
bably arising from imperfect innervation of the muscle ; 
