The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-03-07
Rational Cattle Foeding---NO. 10.
tFrom the French of Jules Crevat.l
TIE FORMATION OF FAT.

he FOhmAllON VT fAIs
AS before stated, no animal is able
to form any organized substance from
inorganic materials; for the source of
such substances is the sun-force, which
the vegetable kingdom alone is able to
absorb and transform. The animal
finds in and selects from its food the
organic principles from which its body
and products are made; being en-
dowed with the power only to modify
them in a way to make them soluble
and digestible. Taken together, the
protein principles and fats of the ami
NAL body, and of milk, give very closely
the same composition as the protein
and oils of their feed, which is their
common source.
Nevertheless, the animal can entirely
transform some organic principles; yet
only by always conforming to the law
of the conservation of force. 1t is thus
that protein may be changed into fat,
and fat into sugar; as is proved in the
CoSO VI Sul blNOlOuo dhlbulo5 WhiSh1
with a diet almost exclusively proteinic,
can still produce the fat and the sugar
of their milk.
Protein, in fact, when in excess in
the food, and there is there, otherwise,
a sufliciency of the respiratory princi-
piles, can, by an admirable economic
disposition of the animal organization
for the conservation of latent work,
transform itself to fat, which may be
stored up in the cells of the adipose
tissue. 1t is easy, by the aid of chemi-
cal formulas, to follow this transforma-
ton, and we can easily verify the fact
that in this reaction there is conserva-
ton of work. 1t is probably the some
what slow respiration of sheep Con &C
count of highly proteinic diet in pas
ture, and of protective woolly coaD,
is the cause of the superior hardness of
their tallow; and also that the very
active respiration of swine, necessitated
by starchy diet, and body well pro-
tected against cold, causes the predomi-
nance in the lard of the palmatine
which makes it soft. In this way we
can explain the soft-fat of the horse, of
man, and especially of aquatic birds,
whose respiration is so active. Thus
also we might explain, by the rapid
transformation of the stearne in pal
matine and glucose, under the consum-
ing action of hurried respiration, the
fact, often noted by butchers, that fat
beeves, when hurried or maltreated on
the road, give soft and oily beef.
"The fat turns to water" is the butch
er's expression.
In practice it is well to take middle
position, and reckon that one kilogram
of protein will make about one-half
kilogram of fat. This transformation
of protein into fat is so natural that it
may be noted every day in the farmers
practice in the curing of cheese; where
we may see the casein changing into a
soft, fatty substance, under the influ-
ence of mild temperature and mod
crate humidity.
AS to the theory still supported by
many Psychologists, who attribute the
formation of animal fats also to the
saccharine and starchy matters of vege-
tation,-it seems to me wholly mad
Missile; for from what source can the
animal get the enormous quantity of
heat necessary to decompose the sugar,
for example, driving out eight-ninths
of its oxygen and then making from it
an amount of fat which will represent
a sum of accumulated work, of latent
heat, almost double what is contained
in that quantity of sugar? The animal
does not have in itself this power of de-
composing the water in order to store
up work under the form of organic hy-
drogen; the plant alone can do that,
by condensing the SUMS heat. Flee
tricity itself, though powerful source
OF heat, cannot produce more than half
of the work, for even if it could decom-
pose the water and set the hydrogen
free, it could not organize it.
Some have referred, in order to
support the hypothesis of the forma-
ton of fat by means of the hydro
carbons, to the slight amount of wax
produced by bees fed for a short
time with sugar; without seeing that
this wax originated from the protein
in circulation in the bodies of the bees
themselves. This production of wax
is soon arrested if the experiment is
prolonged; while it continues very &C.
tive when proteinic material, such as
the white of eggs, is added to the solu,
ton of sugar. Others have cited the
slight formation of glycerine which &C
companies the alcoholic fermentation o
sugar; but this results simply from the
vegetation of the organized ferment