On the formation of fat in the animal body / by J.B. Lawes and J.H. Gilbert.

  • Lawes, J. B. (John Bennet), 1814-1900.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the formation of fat in the animal body / by J.B. Lawes and J.H. Gilbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/24
    conversation with one of us, he expressed his willingness to undertake a conclusive experiment with pigs. Weiske and Wildt^ undertook an investigation to deter- mine the point; which, from a theoretical point of view, was well conceived; but which did not succeed, owing to the oversight of the conditions indicated by experience as essential to the rapid fattening of the animal. They selected four pigs ; two were slaughtered to determine the initial composition; one was fed on food so rich in nitrogen that it suffered in health, and the experiment had to be discontinued; the other was fed on food so poor that it fattened extremely slowly; and hence, at the conclusion, calculation showed that there was enough of the consumed nitrogenous matter available for fat- formation to cover the whole of the fat which had been pro- duced. Thus, it has been concluded from experiments with animals which are not preeminently fat-producers, that fat is probably never formed in the body from the carbo-hydrates; and some of the experiments with more suitable animals have been, to say the least, inconclusive. Further, it seems to be assumed, that no absolute proof on the point can be obtained without the aid of a respiration-apparatus. These views, moreover, have already been adopted, not only by some jjhysiologists, but in some text-books treating of the application of chemistry to the feeding of the animals of the farm. Thus, Professor Emil Wolff, in his Landwirthschaftliche Fiitterungslehre—although he admits that the amounts of increase produced in relation to constituents of food consumed, which it is established by common observation may be obtained with pigs, and still more those recorded in some direct experiments with those animals, are almost incom- prehensible without assuming the direct concurrence of the carbo-hydrates in the formation of fat—nevertheless, seems to consider that evidence of the kind in question, and we sup- po.se our own, therefore, is inconclusive. He says that exact experiments are .still wanting; and he suggests that accurate respiration-experiments with pigs should be made, to settle definitively whether the carbo-hydrates, as well as albumin, can contribute directly to the formation of fat in the animal body. * li. Band x.