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not worked. The oxen which have been used for draught, when turned into a rich pasture, are soon covered with wholesome fat. By means of abundant food and confinement, geese, turkies, and other poultry, may be rendered prodigiously fat; and the same effect is produced by them upon man. When Demetrius Poliorcetes was kept in confinement, and yet provided for in a royal style, he acquired such corpulence that he died of it in a few months.

Tranquillity of mind also tends to promote corpulence when superadded to the circumstances already mentioned. Hence we rarely find that persons subject to violent passions grow fat; but in general that such as are disposed to corpulence are either volatile or not overburdened with sensibility. For the same reason much sleep encourages the increase of fat. If it be true, as some naturalists assert, that the bears, which sleep all the winter, are fat when they come forth again from their retreats, this is to be ascribed to no other cause but the torpid state in which they have passed their time. Why do carp grow so fat when enveloped in moss, unless because they are kept in a state of inactivity and stupor out of their natural element ?

The absence of such passions as reduce the strength and consume the vital spirits contributes not a little to corpulence. Compare only a patient ox and a quiet gelding with an ungovernable bull and a fiery stallion, and you will find that a more weakly body and cooler blood render the former infinitely more disposed to feed than the latter. This calmer circulation of the blood is favourable to the secretion of fat in general; and this is the reason why most persons increase very much in bulk between the ages of forty and fifty years. At that period the pulsations of the heart and the circulation are not so strong and so rapid as in the heyday of youth, and to this the cessation of the growth of the body must certainly contribute its share. A man after he has ceased to grow continues to live, as far as regards food and exercise, just as he did before; the consequence is, that the juices which used to

be applied to the enlargement and completion of the members, are from this time produced in a superabundance, which turns to fat. The same is the case with people who have lost their arms or legs. As they eat and drink no less, though they have no longer those limbs to nourish, they become in general exceedingly plethoric and fat, since they daily retain a quantity of nutritious juices that is not distributed as formerly in the deficient members.

From these observations any one who wishes for rotundity of form will know how to proceed in order to obtain that desirable quality. I am not so biassed, however, as to assert that no advantage whatever is attached to corpulence. A fat man may tumble into the water with less apprehension than a raw-boned figure; because the fat being a substance of a lighter nature is better calculated to keep him afloat than the muscle of the latter, who needs the aid of a couple of blown bladders or a cork to give him the bouyancy which the former derives from his portly paunch. As fat saves from drowning, so also it may preserve for a time from the effects of intense frost, because it protects the flesh from the inclemency of the weather. On other

accounts it would not be well to have no fat for it renders the joints supple and fitter for motion; it prevents the friction of contiguous parts, keeping them always moist and slippery; it communicates a greasiness to the skin which renders it soft and smooth, and defends it from the sharpness of the air; it unites the fibres of the muscles into compact masses, and secures them from becoming entangled with each other, and with the minute vessels and nerves which are every where distributed among them; it serves the purpose of a soft and compressible cushion on which we sit and lie more comfortably; it prevents wrinkles, by imparting a pleasing plumpness to the contours of the body; and it adds to the whiteness of the complexion, owing to the transparency of the skin, wherefore sick and meagre people usually have a sallow look. All these are real benefits, but they are attached to a moderate degree of corpulence alone.

Quesnay calculated that a grown person, when in his natural state, ought to have about eight pounds of fat. The average weight of a man is about one hundred and sixty pounds: but as there have been very fat people who have weighed four, five, nay even six hundred pounds, it may easily be imagined, that in these cases there must have been a prodigious deviation from the state of nature. There have been seen persons with fat six inches deep under the skin; and similar instances have been known among brutes. Hogs have been made so fat that their skin was fifteen inches above the bone. An ox, which otherwise would weigh five or six hundred weight, may be fatted to nearly a ton and a half, which is balf the weight of an elephant.These astonishing deviations from nature cannot possibly be attended with beneficial results; and of this physicians in all ages have been fully aware. It is an observation as ancient as Hippocrates, that health, when at the higheet, as in the fat athlete, was precarious, because it could not then experience any change, unless for the worse. Celsus considered a square-built figure, neither too fat nor too lean, as the best. Sanctorius observed, that after the process of digestion is finished daily, a man ought to be as heavy as he was before it, if he is in perfect health. But how can this hold good respecting people, who, after every meal, add to their weight a considerable quantity of superfluous juices?

In enumerating the dangers to which very corpulent persons are exposed, I shall quote the words of other physicians, without taking any personal share in these sinister predictions. Apoplexies hold a prominent place in the list. Hippocrates knew from experience that fat persons more commonly die a sudden death than less ones; and so he says in several places. Boerhaave ascribes the disposition of corpulent persons to apoplexies, to the obstructed circulation of the blood through the vessels compressed by the fat. The blood gives way to this pressare, and accumulates in those places where there is no fat to prevent the expansion of the vessels. As then the

brain never becomes fat, the blood accumulates in its vessels and expands them to such a degree that they burst, which is frequently the immediate cause of apoplexy. Haller mentions it as a fact universally known, that corpulent persons are disposed to apoplexy. The annals of medicine relate, that a man who, though weighing upwards of six hundred pounds, nevertheless possessed extraordinary agility, and whose waistcoat would button, without straining, round seven men of ordinary dimension, died in his twentyninth or thirtieth year, leaving a pregnant wife and five children. Louis Coute, who measured eight feet round the body, and whose fat, after the removal of the skin, was, from the outer surface to the abdominal muscles, between thirteen and fourteen inches thick,-in short, a man weighing eight hundred pounds, died in his forty-sixth year of apoplexy. The intestines were neither larger nor fatter than in an ordinary subject. His liver, on the other hand, was triangular and indurated; and it was attached for the space of five inches to the omentum. No person can hesitate to believe such evidence, which is moreover confirmed by the experience of all ages.

Somnolency is another complaint to which corpulent persons are liable. Boerhaave once had an interview with a doctor, who had grown fat with fre quent unnecessary bleeding, and who was so lethargic that he fell asleep at least ten times during their conversation. Athenæus relates of Dionysius, tyrant of Heraclea, that he was so sleepy, owing to his excessive corpulence, that it was impossible to keep him awake without thrusting pins through the fat into his flesh.

It

The insensibility and stupidity of corpulent persons go hand-in-hand with this disease; for the fat covers and buries the nerves, which must be touched by sensible objects, in order to our having any perception of them. moreover compresses and paralyses the muscles, the nerves of which also it incapacitates for moving them. Nicomachus, of Smyrna, was by corpulence rendered incapable of locomotion; and we have had instances in England of

persons, who, from the same cause, could scarcely stir from the spot. The meagre animals, on the contrary, which might be supposed to be weak, such as greyhounds, racers and hunters among horses, stags, &c. are remarkable for their agility, and appear to fly through the air.

As the exuberant fat compresses the lungs, it is obvious why corpulent persons experience a difficulty of respiration, and are sometimes suddenly suffocated. The same thing frequently happens to ortolans and other birds, which are apt to grow very fat. Similar instances are related of men. Aristotle makes mention of a man who was suffocated by his fat, which was six inches thick; and Dionis observes, that infants at the breast are sometimes carried off in the same way, because the milk contains many butyraceous particles, which are easily transformed into fat. Hippocrates also was acquainted with this species of death. Corpulent persons, says he, are frequently suffocated by inflammatory fevers and shortness of breath, and in general die suddenly.

The corpulent have also reason to apprehend a deficiency of blood. Their alimentary juices are deposited in too great quantity, and as it were in a crude state in the cellular substance, because their impaired powers are incapable of digesting them. The blood vessels, moreover, are too much compressed by the fat to be able to contain much blood. On this account Boerhaave makes a fundamental distinction between fat and plethoric persons. "The corpulent," says he, "are considered as plethoric, because they are out of breath at the slightest motion; because the most trifling circumstance impels the blood to the head; and because they are so liable to apoplexy." But all this merely proves that the blood does not flow freely through the straitened vessels, and by no means that those vessels contain too much of that fluid. This observation is of practical utility. Bleeding is serviceable to plethoric, and must of course be pernicious to the fat, unless in cases like that related by Boerhaave, who, by bleeding, saved the life of a very

corpulent person. The patient had overheated himself by too violent exercise in summer. The melted fat had discharged itself into the vessels, and distended them to such a degree as to produce apoplexy, which was removed by the bleeding.

"Lastly," says Haller, "excessive corpulence induces dropsy, and this is the most common end of such persons, in whom those blood-vessels, which ought to receive the returning gaseous fluids, are probably obstructed. Finally, there are observations proving that stones are liable to be formed in the kidneys when overloaded with fat."

What a terrific catalogue of ailments for you miserable gorbellies! But what is still worse, every word of this is true, and not a single point can be denied, or even doubted. I feel for you much too sincerely not to lay before you all the means that should be employed by those who would either prevent or reduce corpulence. Here you will find lessons which will make your hair stand on end.

A

Abstinence is a really golden mean against the exuberance of nutritive juices. By long continued abstinence serpents become quite lean. In autumn the cellular substance of the cameleon, the lizard, and the frog, is full of fat; and after the winter's fast, they are found in spring quite empty. But though it is certain that fasting cannot make a person fat, still it is not a little of it that will make him lean. young man who drank nothing but water, abstained from drinking at one time sixty days and at another forty-six. During the first of these periods he took animal food, but in the second nothing but such aliments as the Catholic church authorizes in fasts. Being weighed both before and after, he was found each time a few pounds lighter; but after the second abstinence, this reduction was greater than after the first. By drinking afterwards twice a day, he recovered his former weight in six days, and gained a few pounds in addition. Hence we very speedily recover, by means of the most temperate meals, what we have lost by rigid and long-continued abstinence, even though we were to confine ourselves to a fast

diet, which furnishes a smaller quantity of juices than animal food, but yet more than is requisite for the support of life. We must therefore seek more efficacious means.

Galen commended the effect of mental cares and anxieties as a remedy for corpulence,and Ovid was well acquainted with their operation :— Attenuant vigiles corpus miserabile curæ ; Adducitque cutim macies et in aera succus

Corporis omnis abit; vox tantum atque ossa supersunt. Haller mentions two cases in point, which I must introduce. "Cares and exertion of the mental powers render the body very lean; and those persons are invariably fatter in whom the passions are more moderate. Hence, Cæsar was accustomed to say that he was not afraid of 'fat, sleek-headed men,' because such men are not in general very solicitous about the common wea! or the preservation of liberty. The celebrated Dean Swift, while involved in cares and hostilities, was extremely meagre; but became excessively corpulent after his mental faculties failed, and he had fallen into a state of idiocy."

In this list may be classed all the violent passions. Strong exercise also reduces fat; but this method should not be resorted to, till great part of the exuberant fat has been absorbed in some other manner. This follows of course, for the shortness of breath and indolence of corpulent people, forbids much bodily exertion. Hence, other means must previously be tried for reducing the "huge hill of flesh," and to this end friction, which is a passive motion, may probably conduce. Zacutus Lusitanus, Muys, and Quesnay, relate, that by oft-repeated friction unwieldly corpulence has been removed. Fever diminishes fat in a wonderful manner. One person lost from this cause thirty pounds, another after salivation fifty pounds, and a third in the small-pox eighty pounds of his weight. But it should be observed, that after illness and a course of medicine, the fat usually accumulates again as fast as it before diminished. A hog that is fastened up may be made fat in three days, and a lark fatted in one night becomes much poorer in the course of the ensuing day.

This

I wish corpulent people no diseases for their cure; still less can I recommend medicines to them. Dr. Fothergill observes, that a strict adherence to vegetable diet reduces exuberant fat more certainly than any other means that he knows, and Dr. Cheyne furnished, in his own person, an extraordinary instance of its efficacy. physician, when between thirty and forty years of age, had, by indulgence in the pleasures of the table, swelled to such a size as to exceed thirty-two stone weight. He was obliged to have the whole side of his chariot made open to admit him ; and he grew shortbreathed, lethargic, nervous, and scorbutic, so that his life became an intolerable burden. In this deplorable condition, after trying in vain all the power of medicine, he resolved to confine himself to a milk and vegetable diet, the good effects of which quickly appeared. His size was reduced almost a third, and he recovered his strength, activity, and cheerfulness, with the perfect use of all his faculties.

White Castile soap has been proposed as a remedy to melt down and facilitate the absorption of fat. A very corpulent man took every evening half an ounce dissolved in half a pint of water, and in two years became half a hundred weight lighter. He continued the use of it, and in six years was perfectly cured. The soap operated as a diuretic without any inconvenience. Boerhaave employed acids, crystals of tartar, cream of tartar, and such like purgatives; but Haller relates that vinegar taken for this purpose by a master-builder, occasioned incessant vomiting and death, after which the inner coat of the stomach was found indurated to the depth of an inch or more.

Lieutaud recommends acetum scilliticum taken in small doses, with frequent purging and brisk exercise: but it will seldom happen that the patients will be found sufficiently steady to persist in any of these courses; the disorder, from its nature, rendering them irresolute and inattentive to their condition.

The principal use of rules, therefore, must be with a view to prevention; and persons disposed to cor

pulence should be careful in time to prevent it from becoming an absolute disease, by taking a great deal of exercise, not indulging in sleep, and abridging their meals, especially supper.

Instead, however, of the tedious and partly dangerous means enumerated above I would recommend to my cor

pulent readers, nocturnal vigils and meditation. There is no remedy for reducing obesity with more honour than algebra, if the patient only studies it fundamentally at night and cuts wood by day. This remedy is sympathetic: it operates through the spirits, and removes fat by a+b. Feb. 1824.

(Sel. Mag.)

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
No. X.

OF VINOUS OR SPIRITUOUS FERMENTATION.

WINE, beer, and similarly fermented liquors, appear to have been known in the earliest ages. Thus the Scripture informs us that the patriarch Noah planted a vineyard, and drank wine; and the heathen writers are unanimous in ascribing the invention of this beverage to their earliest kings and heroes. Beer also seems to have been discovered at a very remote period. It was in common use in Egypt in the time of Herodotus; and Tacitus informs us that it was the general drink of the Germans. Whether the ancients had any method of procuring ardent spirits from these or any other liquor does not appear. The Greeks and Romans, however, seem to have been ignorant of them; at least we can discover no allusion to them in their writings.

Wine is mostly obtained from the juice pressed from grapes and other fruits. This is at first a sweet watery liquor with a little tartness, but which has no strength or spirit, and in this state is called must. The tartness arises from the presence of some acid, one or more of which may be found in most if not all fruits. Those most abundant and likewise most common are the Malic, Sorbic, and Citric acids.* Apples, barberries, plums, sloes, elder berries, and the berries of the mountain ash, contain both malic and sorbic acids; gooseberries, currants, bilberries, cherries, strawberries, and raspberries, have the malic and citric combined; while oranges, lemons, cranberries, and

* Malic from malum the apple, in which this acid most abounds; Sorbic from Sorbus aucuparia, the mountain ash; and Citric from Citrus the citron tree.

the hip, have the citric acid unmixed with any other.

After this sweet but somewhat tartish liquor of which I have spoken is pressed from the different fruits employed in making wine, it is left to stand awhile. It then becomes thick and muddy, moves up and down, and throws up scum and bubbles of air to the surface. This is called working or fermenting. It continues in this state for some time, differing according to the quantity of the juice, and the temperature of the air. It then gradually settles again, becoming clearer than at first. It has now lost its sweet flat taste, and has acquired a briskness and pungency with a heating and intoxicating property; that is, it has become wine. And this process is called vinous fermentation.

The basis of wine, as may be perceived from what has been mentioned above, is its sweetness; and if sugar and water, with the addition of a little tartar, be mixed together, an artificial must might be made, and the vinous fermentation would take place as before: but in this latter case the wine would be devoid of flavour. The great advantage then of fruits in making wine is, that, in addition to the sweetness, they communicate likewise the flavour for which they are themselves distinguished, and which is generally supposed to arise from the presence of some volatile oil; though it exists in such a small proportion, that chemists have not as yet been able to obtain it in a separate state. The fruits employed in our own country for making wine, are principally currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and elder berries.

The

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