On steatosis, or adipification of muscle / by C. H. Hallett.

  • Hallett, Charles Henry.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On steatosis, or adipification of muscle / by C. H. Hallett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    lemma, in those parts of the fibrillse which have undergone most complete transformation, while but few can be detected near those parts in which the process of transformation has only just com- menced. Again, if the portion of fatty muscle under examina- tion be macerated in ether, or submitted to the action of boiling alcohol for some time, and then re-examined, the fat corpuscles and globules will be found to have almost entirely disappeared, and but few of the corpuscles characteristic of muscle will be ob- served where the fatty matters were most abundant; they have for the most part disappeared, or, more likely, have entirely changed their character. In this stage of the process of adipifi- cation, fat globules and corpuscles can be detected sparingly dis- tributed in the meshes of the areolar tissue connecting the fibrillse and fibres together. The gradaal deposition of adipose substances can be traced proceeding onwards, in this way, from one end of a fibre or fibril- la to the other, or from its centre towards either extremity, the fat corpuscles becoming relatively more numerous as the transfor- mation goes on, both within the sarcolemma and in the meshes of the areolar tissue connecting adjoining fibrillse together. When the deposition of fat has advanced to its greatest extent,—in other words, where the muscle is apparently wholly converted into fat, there beinff no marked traces of muscular fibre visible to the naked eye,—myoline, although in extremely small quantity, is still capable of being detected by the microscope. It is not uncom- mon to find the sarcolemma ruptured, and one or more fat cor- puscles protruding from it; that this is not always the result of the manipulation with the needles necessary to prepare the fibre for minute examination, is shown by the fact that it seldom occurs or is met with in fibres which have not been wholly transformed; and also by its sometimes being impossible to trace the sarcolem- ma for any great distance, in consequence of its being completely broken up and destroyed ; so that we must ascribe the rupture to a diminution of the elasticity and power of coherence of the sar- colemma consequent on the deposition of fat both within and around it,—an effect which is well known to follow the accumu- lation of fat beyond its normal quantity in any texture. The only other change worthy of mention where the muscle appears ■wholly transformed, was observed to be a greater relative amount of fat globules around the fasciculi of fibres ; but this would appear to be the result of the breaking up of the sarcolemma in adjoining fasciculi at least to a great extent. It is this stage of the process of adipification of muscle which Vicq d'Azyr undoubtedly intended to describe in his comments on the case, of which an abstract has been given in this memoir.* • Loc. cit.