Abstract
THE new number of the Zeitschrift für Biologie (VI. i.) contains an interesting paper by Subbotin “On the Physiology of Fats.” Towards an answer to the question—Is there in the animal organism any direct passage of fat from the alimentary canal to the cells of adipose tissue? a lean dog was fed for a month on meat, spermaceti, and common fat. Of the 1,000 grms. of spermaceti swallowed, 800, at least, were absorbed; but the merest trace only of spermaceti could be found in the fatty tissue of the body at the close of the experiment. Spermaceti, therefore, though absorbed and consumed in the economy, is not stored up unchanged. Hence there is a presumption that the same is the case with other fats (though it is obvious that many possible events might negative the presumption). Towards solving the further question—Are fats formed in the body out of proteids? a dog reduced to the utmost leanness was fed on leanest meat and palm oil (palmitin and olein) for twenty-five days, during which he gained three kilos in weight. The fat of the body was, at the close, found to contain 13.9 per cent. of stearin, though none had been taken. A very considerable quantity of stearin had therefore been formed in the body. A very lean dog was fed for six weeks on leanest meat, and a soda soap made with palmitic and stearic acids only. At the end of the experiment, the dog having gained over three kilos in weight, the fat of the body was found to consist of 53.6 per cent. palmitin, 13.4 per cent. stearin, and 33 per cent. olein. A large quantity of olein had therefore been formed in this case. But if olein was thus formed, possibly the palmitin and stearin were likewise formed from proteids, and not by synthesis of the fatty acids with the glycerin of the economy. Subbotin further points out that olein is more abundant in the sub-cutaneous than in the deep-seated fat, possibly on account of a less energetic transformation of proteids in the cooler surface regions. So also in cold-blooded animals the fat is proportionally richer in olein.—The same number contains a long paper by Vierordt, in which that distinguished physiologist continues his researches on the connection between the delicacy of touch and mobility of any part of the body. In this memoir he confines his attention to the arm from the shoulder downwards, working upon data provided by his pupils Kottenkamp and Ullrich, who have made a study of the sense of touch in all parts of the arm, to a much greater extent and with much fuller detail than did Weber, and whose elaborate results are given in a paper immediately preceding Vierordt's. In the arm Vierordt finds striking illustrations of his hypothesis that the delicacy of touch in any point in a region of the body which is moved as a whole, is proportional to the distance of the point from the centre of movement of the region. There are also hygienic papers by Pettenkofer and others on the cholera epidemic of 1865 at Gibraltar, and typhus and drinking water at the barracks at Neustift.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 1, 513 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001513a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001513a0