Читать книгу Anatomy and Embalming - Charles Otto Dhonau - Страница 46

—Fat is a deposit of an oil in the cells of the tissues, just beneath the skin, giving roundness and plumpness to the body, and acting as an excellent non-conductor for the retention of heat.

So tiny are these cells, that there are over sixty-five million in a cubic inch of fat. As they are kept moist, the liquid does not ooze out; but, on drying, it comes to the surface, and thus a piece of fat feels oily when exposed to the air. The quantity of fat varies with the state of nutrition. In corpulent persons, the masses of fat beneath the skin, in the mesentery, on the surface of the heart and the great vessels, between the muscles, and in the neighborhood of the nerves, are considerably increased. Conversely, in the emaciated we sometimes find beneath the skin cells which contain only one oil drop. Many masses of fat which have an important relation to muscular actions—such as the fat of the orbit or the cheek, do not disappear in the most emaciated persons. Even in starvation, the fatty substance of the brain and spinal cord are retained.

Fat collects as pads in the hollows of the bones, around the joints and between the muscles, causing them to glide more easily upon each other. As marrow, it nourishes the skeleton, and also distributes the shock of any jar the limb may sustain.

Fat does not gather within the cranium, the lungs or the eyelids, where its accumulation would clog the organs.