AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF FAT STARVATION WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PRODUCTION OF SEROUS ATROPHY OF FAT

Abstract

The following inferences may be made from the foregoing study: 1. The lesions resulting from fat starvation, at least in the case of pigs, do not resemble or even suggest those of rickets. 2. Prolonged fat starvation leads to the entire disappearance of fat from the adipose tissues. The form of fat atrophy observed as the result of experimental fat starvation corresponds to the serous fat atrophy described by Flemming, and is essentially the same type of fat atrophy as that found in the epicardial and perirenal fat in the human subject as the result of wasting disease. 3. The. lecithins of the brain and the fat of the liver are not materially reduced by fat starvation. 4. Fat starvation does not lead to advanced serous fat atrophy of the subcutaneous fat if the animal be given a large excess of carbohydrate food or a considerable excess of the carbohydrate and proteid constituents of milk. 5. Fat starvation causes a very imperfect absorption of the salts of P2O5 from the intestine.