Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure

by J.-F. Dancel

The walrus, which, according to Buffon, seems to afford the connecting link between amphibious quadrupeds and the cetacea, is a veritable mass of fat, and lives exclusively upon marine herbage. The walrus of Kamschatka measures from twenty to twenty-three feet in length, sixteen to eighteen feet in circumference, and weighs from six to eight thousand pounds.

The following fact may be cited as a remarkable proof that the quantity of fat in any animal is mainly dependent on the character of its food: Among the whale tribe, those monsters in size, that of Greenland (Balæna mysticetus of Linnæus) possesses the greatest amount of blubber, and it feeds upon zoophytes, of which many resemble as much in character the plant as the animal. The fin-backed whale (Balæna böops of Linnæus), which does not feed upon mucilaginous matter, but upon small fish, has a much thinner layer of blubber than the former. The sperm whale or cachalot (Balæna physalus of Linnæus), which feeds on mackerel, herrings, and northern salmon, although nearly as long as the Greenland whale, is much thinner. The layer of blubber is not so thick as in the fin-backed, and yields only ten or twelve tuns of oil; while the Greenland whale yields fifty, sixty, and even eighty tuns.

Now, chemistry, as we have said, furnishes a rational explanation of these facts. With the exception of flesh, all alimentary substances (the mucilaginous, the gummy, the saccharine, the aqueous, &c.) consist of carbon and hydrogen, and fat is composed of the same elements. Success in the treatment of disease would be more frequent, if medical practitioners would pay greater attention to the chemistry of the vital functions; and the reason why certain articles of diet have a greater tendency than others to the formation of fat, would, by the aid of the exact science of chemistry, be rendered self-evident.

All medical writers agree that want of sufficient exercise—as by lying too much in bed, riding in a carriage, &c.—is favourable to the development of obesity. The explanation is simple. We are all cognizant of the fact, that the body is sustained chiefly by means of food; but we also know that the atmosphere by which we are surrounded, plays an important part in the nourishment of the body. The atmosphere we inspire contains oxygen gas, a portion of which is destined to revivify the blood in its passage through the lungs; another portion we expel, we expire, no longer pure, but in combination with carbon obtained from the body, in the form of carbonic acid gas. In proportion as the respiration is more active, a larger quantity of oxygen is taken into the system, and more carbon in combination with oxygen is expelled as carbonic acid gas. There is consequently a less amount of carbon left in the system to form fat. The greater the activity of the animal, the more frequent do the respirations become. Having said this, it is readily understood why want of exercise, riding in a carriage, lying too much in bed, tend to the development of fat; because, with this want of activity, respiration is less frequent, and the oxygen combines with a less amount of carbon, and a larger quantity is left to enter into combination with the existing hydrogen, forming fat. Consequently the mountaineer, breathing an atmosphere rich in oxygen, is generally less prone to the formation of fat than the dweller in the valley.

The Bedouin Arab, owing to the activity of a nomadic life, is never fat. Our peasantry are rarely over fat, unless they have acquired wealth sufficient to relieve them from the necessity for labor. Animals which are in constant motion, such as the roebuck and the deer, although feeding upon substances rich in carbon and in hydrogen, have usually but little fat.

Those birds which are continually on the wing are never very fat. On the other hand, birds or animals leading an inactive life readily take on fat. A means frequently resorted to, in order to fatten them, is to feed them in a small enclosure. Some domestic animals are even deprived of all power of motion in order to hasten their fattening.

Among orientals, where the men remain seated the greater part of the day, and the women are obliged to stay in the house without ever going out, frequent examples of obesity are to be met with.

Nuns in their cloistered convents, prisoners in jails often grow fat in spite of their wretched food, because the air they breathe being deficient in oxygen, withdraws but a small portion of the carbon from the system, the remainder going to the formation of fat. It is when the human body has attained its full growth, and especially in the decline of life, that fat in excess begins to be developed. I am of opinion that want of exercise is one of its principal causes. With increasing age the step becomes more guarded, and a repugnance is felt for all bodily exertion. In this way the quality of the air, and the quantity of oxygen it contains have much to do with the formation of fat.

By virtue of that happy distribution and balance of forces to be met with throughout the universe, the expired carbonic acid gas of men and animals is destined to the nutrition of plants, which assimilate the carbon and set free oxygen gas. Plants being thus chiefly composed of carbon, are, when taken as food, rich in the chief constituent of fat; and fat itself is frequently a vegetable production. Mutton fat resembles that of the cacao bean, and human fat is similar to olive oil.

It is therefore clearly established that the immediate and direct cause of the development of fat in the case of men and animals is to be sought in the nature of the aliment, giving, at the same time due weight to the several general conditions which have a tendency to favor the development of obesity. All food which is not flesh—all food rich in carbon and hydrogen must have a tendency to produce fat. Upon these principles only can any rational treatment for the cure of obesity satisfactorily rest.