the patients themselves seem rather accompanifttents than causes. Dr. Chambers

also goes into the subject of treatment; which con- sists rather in diet and management than much medicine. He also broaches a curious application of corpulence or weight as a test of health—of what in actuary phraseology is called, "sound" life. Fat in moderation falls into the category of the benign extreme of Celsus ; leanness, as a general rule, is the reverse; The man with "flesh on his bones" is likely to be a good average life : there is evidently nothing hectic about him; it is not probable that he will "worry himself to death"; like the rest of us, he will be ob- noxious to accident, destiny, or epidemics but with these excep- tions he will probably reach a remunerating age, if not the three- score years and ten. Dr. Chambers has therefore turned his attention to the construction of tables of weight in proportion to height; so that when you want to get an idea of the probable "value" of a life, you measure its owner and then weigh him—if he deviates too much or too little from the true, standard, ,caveto. As yet this subject is far from complete, owing to the absence of sufficient data; but by the assistance of some friends Dr, Chainlaers has curiously pursued it. There is a table of what would be the proportionate height and weight of the best antique statues, from the tumbler to the Farnese' Hercules, if 'reduced to a common standard at- heights from five feet one inch to six feet : anti this shows the bean ideal of light and heavy weights, with their inter- mediate gradations. There is a similar table of the " champions " of England, as an example of vigorous form in practical life as the fisticuff line ; and these are accompanied by a table' for common people. Of course this is not meant to supersede other tests, nor is it to be taken precisely : a person may be somewhat above or somewhat below the figures, without indicating probable apoplexy in the heavy ease, or consumption in the light—the two great enemies of insurance-offices. But we infer that Dr. Chambers would look wanly at much deviation, especially if towards the lean kine.

This is a general rule. The wiry iron-muscled man is a peculiar class of -which Dr. Chambers takes little notice. The fat, sleek- headed man, only lives up to a certain age. Those who top four- score years are rarely of the " podgy " order.

"The tendency to the partial distribution of fat which has been noticed to be so frequent at the turn of life, ..inereases with increasing years. It is rare, however, to find this diathesis coincident with extreme old age, the incon- veniences which it gives rise to being usually fatal before that time. I have had occasion, during the last few years, to see, on behalf of the Hand-in- Hand Insurance, a great number of aged persons, from eighty to ninety-three years old, who were desirous of insuring their lives until January 1850, for

• Corpulence, or Excess of Fat in the Human Body: its Relations to Chemistry and Physiology, its Bearings on other Diseases and the Value of Human Life, and its Indications of Treatment. With an Appendix on Emaciation. By Thomas King Chambers, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and Dulstonian Lecturer for IMO. Published by Longman and Co. The e believe tins is, 'the first, systematic attempt that has been

made to treat ," corpulence " ivith:gravity and inellieal philosophy. Hitherto " fit ". has served as a but for small wits to shoot at; or it has been handled after the manner of the newspaper retailers of i

surprising occurrences; or if ahotter class of His friends, it appears, could have procured a respite if he would mind has employed itself upon the theme, -it has seemed proper to har,tdle the matter facetiously, intermingling •Witlpriefessional oh-. even have made a show of discussing the subject with some Protest- ,

servations, remarkable instances of fat men and /the ineenvenienees an anecdotioal or. . a gossipy manner. Dr.

ten lectures he oonsidera the chemicilyroperties and production of fat, with its uses anatomically or physiologically. HO investigates

eriods of life when we should exhibit a tendency to the fat or the lean, with the why and the wherefore. Reexamines the statistics

the sake of securing- the amount of a bonus then to be declared by the Equitable. Among these there were but two obese persons, and both of these are since deceased.

"Those who attain great age are generally very thin and spare, but still the fat about the hearti i

s ncreased in quantity, and there is a„ good allowance ,of it in the mesentery. The; ementinn„ however, Floes not gnaw; so that a,Promi- nent abdomen is as tniMbonon amottg nonagenarians as it is in youth.' : '

Although Dr.' rs ve ro erly inpires into

asn 41 '

of fat and le ' . , •

s,

seeondany 'A! 'eheah e'genie

sons are tffltr sto •cufluit eracieS v'.4 tit or,

fhaq

lean, atig4,73 brings , sin tran. It is allikniatter, of .Constitution, as aae, alt '10 grehtneO &co o Lord 211 itt ITV ChliStrained, byHthe evidence, to say of extreme :Tiierance Ano, potatf6ns. Some men under The most precautionary 'dit will get Aunt ; fellows who swalltha their three pounds of steak, and leave nothing but bones from 'a fore-quarter of delicate spring lamb, will look as if they "never had a meal's victuals " ; and thin they would remain te the end of the chapter, if fed upon the choicest of fat pr Milky diet, or dosed with cod-oil—our author's specific for emaciation. Chemistry may decide whether fat must be taken into the stomach in an element- ary state, or whether the stoinaeh can produce it from food that does not appear to contain oleaginous particles, or whether it niay not be produced by some change in the tissues of our own bodies. It is possible that farther experiment may discover how and when the fat is formed—by what organ and in what state of diges- tion or assimilation, from the stomach to- theblood. Further light, too, may be thrown upon very curious questions connected with the physiological uses of fat and them:tanner in which it is excreted. After an, however, we return to the point—why some people get fat in their own and the dootor's despite; why some people may be made fat; why some ,people are lean, and others will continue so, try- how one may. This want of knowledge of first causes needs not affect practice or induce people to abandon care and ad- vice, because neither the one nor the other avail beyond a certain degree, and. because the ..means employed must be empirical. It would be worth the while of any physician who gives his atten- tion tti corpulence, to consider more closely than we think has yet been done the 'effects of excretion- as well as production. To put the point inan extreme way, itis possible that the thinnest man, in health, may form fetes quickly as a stout person ; but the thin man may excrete, that. is consume it, as it forms; the other lays up the fat in deposit. Dr. Chambers has not altogether overlooked the question in his ouriona remarks on the capacity of the' lungs and respiration ; but we do not think he fully scathe conclusion to which it points. Towards the middle of the following extract on the uses of fat,,the idea we are speaking of is present : it is the fiery- breath of the lion that keeps him spare, the less restless grazing animal gets flesh. As a constituent of the bodily frame, fat has important duties to perform. It fills up those angular spaces which the Inechani.ul form of parts most con- venient for motion leaves between them. Thus it acts as a Rad on which the eye may revolve 'with fluency. The form of the heart, if it consisted of its muscular structure only, unfits it for moving freely in a confined space, and the periodical alterations in shape would cause a most inconvenient amount of friction; it is therefore padded into a smooth rounded form by adipose tissue. The same purpose appears to be answered by the °mut= . and the mesentery, by the fat-vesicles in the Haversian eqnals of bone, and in the spinal canal, in the interspaees of the joints, lathe muscles of the palm, &c.'Fat answers also the purpose of retaining warmth, and so enabling tho body to be less exhausted by its exertions in the producticin of heat.. There- fore are the natives of cold regions more thickly clothed with this defence, and, by the quantity of it tlier possess, attract man's cupidity to the frozen Poles. So in winter, the hibernating animal, unable to keep up its heat by a continuous supply of food, is guarded against the destructive effect of cold by fat, and presents the anomaly noticed bY the Roman poet, of being in best condition when he has nothing to live upon hut sleep-

. . Tots mild dormitnr hidum, et pinfruior illo

Tempoiv sum, quo me nil ni,i somnus alit,' says Martial's' dormouse. It is remarked-by Professor Barkow, that creatures whose external coveting protects them from. cold during hibernation lose much less weight whenexposed, to the air than those whose skin is more

' sn. transpirable. Thus a "1 weighing on the 6th January eighty-Ave grains, on the 2d and 20th February had undergone no appreciable change, and en the 8th of March weighed eighty-four Arming and a half. "But a toad, on being dug u:r, lost three grains in a quarter of an hour. •

"Besides these mechanical duties of facilitating motion, and acting as an external defence from the cold; fat appears in many cases to perform the ehendeal office of supplyingfuel to theresmration, and so in another way con- tributes to keep up the animal heat. It serves, in fact, as a storehouse of carbon for the use of the lungs. When cut off from the supply of food, an animal would soon be consumed by the hungry flame of vital heat, were there not something to burn besides his own person. Fat affords in this case a power of resistance to the overpowering continuous force of one of the funetifIns, of „lifer. Thus the tadpole, from the fourteenth day after its exit from the egg' fo.the time of the alteration of its respiratory organs at the period of becoming a frog, contains daily more and more fat in the abdomen' but immediately after this change all the fat rapidly disappears. The animal would probably, without this fat, be unable to bear the strain upon the con- stitution which the loss of the tail must occasion ; but by possessing such a reserve, can resist the new influences to which its body has not yet become habituated.

"Similar stores of fat are accumulated in the bodies of the Herbivore, while animals which feed upon flesh are spare and lean. The food of the horse is deficient in carbon compounds capable of absorption into his system.; he can extract but little from it, however much and often he eats. If he was debarred for a short time from his pasture, the respiration muut be sup- plied with fuel from his own substance. Fat, therefore, clothes his organs, and shields them from the consuming fire of respiratory absorption. But the lion and the boa take in so much carbon in a state of combination at one meal, that the accumulation of it in the blood suffices to prevent for a long time the combustion of the muscular fibre. They have therefore no occasion for reserves of fat, and exhibit that proportionate leanness which suits so well their active predatory habits.

'

" This method adopted by Nature of providing against the effects of a new chemical action in altered circumstances of the body, by means of saving up a quantity of fat for the occasion, we um also see exemplified in our own race. For the first three days at leaat, after birth, the human infant, in spite of the addition made to its eubstanee by fqqd, loses in weight to a con- anlerable,extent ; consuming, in fact, by the novel function of respiration, 'nmtbira'prOblialy unacted upon by oxygen. It is not till the fifth or sixth daythat, it hag- got eitflieieratly used to-its new life to assimilate enough to

begin ' upon, - , ', _ ' eni a,h;easure of fat net provided against this couthereney, injury to enee, and; probabiy cleat h, would follow. . .

, t'lfras such fact ' as these that induccd-the'li■lit Greek philosophers to 'isonjetettire`tlikethe"intention of fat 'is to ettstit 4 ' Named heat by cora• bustain; Leo the tome way aseil su lies the flame of edranp,: and when that boule.', , ',designedly eranslete from, len, -,w1;io ill quoting the words of an untlop -flame ffis ;less pewerful, less is req . that the fat, a/Aid by 40 in a tzeasure- anciept philosopher of the physical or pr-fiocratic school -for the purpose of ridiculing them, that r may have ahopportunity of pointing out how early Greek philosophy was in the right path of theory, and how probably, if it had continued in that path, it 'would have anticipated modern diseev But the influence of the school of Secretes, followed up by his talented pup Aristotle and Plato, had diverted it to other subjects than the contemplation .of Nature ; and the consequences are here apparent. Here we see Galen, four hundred years after. Socrates, still led away by the verbal distinctions of his dialectic philosophy, and find him citing, only to dissent from, an opinion due to the school bemoorittes, which later times have made their own, and our generation only at length proved."

Besides its animal and chemical uses, fat in moderation is a ne- cessity in another way ; it serves as a sort of protection against external violence. .

"The acquisition of fat is not without an important practical bearing on the health. A certain power of resistance to external physical influences seems to depend very much on the maintenance of a proper proportion of this substance in the body. Prize-fighters have long since found that to make it safe for them to undergo the severe treatment which the exercise of their calling entails, they must be at least up to 'it particular weight. This weight vanes, of course according to the individual's constitution. One pugilist will describe himself as belonging to the heavy, another to the light weights; not using the expression to denote his actual gravity, but to indi- cate what proportion to Ins height it ought to bear—that is, whether he ought to be hght or heavy for a man of his inches to enable him to enter into a fight without peril. The number of unds being aacertained, if he has trained himself too much, -he will feed ' eel(' up to the mark; for he knows by experience, that though fat will somewhat impede the activity of his muscles, yet, without it, the blows he receives would be followed by more severe consequences. .Now, it is clear that the augmentation of weight thus experienced is not muscle, for the previous training 'has brought that tissue to its fullest development ; and it is too permanent to be water • so that I Think the conclusion I have suggested is the true one, and that it is fat which gives the power of resistance. "On the other hand, excess in this respect is equally-injurious with de- ficiency. Indeed, practically speaking, it is more injurious, because the dangers to which it exposes the individual are more likely to be induced by the ordinary course pt our lives than are the dangers which defect is subject to. By an over-devdtopment of adipose tissue, the capillary system of blood- vessels is, as I before pointed out, vastly increased in aggregate bulk, while at the same time no corresponding increase takes place in the forces which supply the means of action to those capillaries. Hence there is a compara- tive weakness in the conservative vital actions ; and an injury to any part of the body, especially to those parts whici, physiologiceily speaking, are most distant from the fountain of life, is less easily repaired. Thus, in obese persons, erysipelas, low inflammation and gangrene, supervene on slight accidents, and operations are more dangerous m their consequences. Prac- tically, therefore, a similar result arises in the case of cams& and deficienny, but with, I think, this difference, that whereas the flret gives rise to bad effects after small and common accidents, the evil of the latter is only expe- rienced when the system is put to a severe strain. We are all liable to tumble down and break our thins, which if we are obese will be a more serious accident than to others; but few of us wish to prepare ourselves for sustaining the punishment of a pugilist, which doubtless requires a full allowance of fat."

Dr. Chambers has added to the lectures an appendix on emacia- tion considered in reference to disease ; of which-, in fact, emacia- tion, as opposed to constitutional leanness, may be considered a symptom. His attention is chiefly directed to hectic and tubercu- lous disease—consumption. The treatment he suggests is cod-oil strenuously persisted in where it seems beneficial. The statistics, especially of theHospital for Consumption support the opinion of its utility in many cases; but, as Dr. Chambers observes, some of them require much closer examination.

"It would be interesting to know the peculiarities of the several cases alluded to in the report above quoted, where 'an amelioration of the symp- toms did not follow an increase of weight ' ; whether or not they are of the class I have before mentioned, in which the pulmonary organs appear pri- marily affected, and where the general powers of assimilation are uninjured. My own individual experience, and that of several others with whom I have conversed, inclines me to believe that such is probably the fact; and that cases of consumption without wasting (43.W.crts allEll cp.hcrion) are really in- stances of the disease commencing in the lungs, and abiding in its original seat 'without affecting the ehylopoietic viscera, or where such a state of cachexia has been replaced by the disease of the chest. Here cod-liver oil is powerless; • it is not a cure for tuberculosis, but a cure for emaciation ; and to employ the remedy will, as the report expresses itself; cause it to fall 'into the discredit which disappointment after an unlimited confidence induces.'

"For emaciation, however, I believe we here possess a remedy such as none other known can take the place of, both as regards the universality of its application and the small number of the contra-indicating circumstances. And m arresting emaciation, we not only remove one of the distressing symptoms of the disorder, but we supply the body with the means of resist- ance to morbid processes, and we prolong life, if not to the ordinary dura- tion, yet much beyond what its limits would otherwise have been. If this is a cure consumption, on statistical evidence, is curable ; if not, the matter is did undecided.' ,

It might be observed that emaciation is perhaps hardly a dis- ease of itself, but a symptom of some other disease ; and that if cod-oil removes the symptoms, the disease might be removed without the oil by direct action—unless, indeed, the oil is a specific for the disease.