known to breeders of cattle. "The art of breeding and feeding stock,"
says Dr. Letheby,[9] "is to overcome excessive tendency to accumulation
of either surface fat or visceral fat, and at the same time to produce a
fat which will not melt or boil away in cooking. Oily foods have a
tendency to make soft fats which will not bear cooking." Such
differences are also seen between English and American bacon, the former
being much more solid; and we know, also, that the fat of different
animals varies remarkably, and that some, as the fat of hay-fed horses,
is readily worked off. Such facts as these may reasonably be held to
sustain the popular creed as to there being bad fats and good fats, and
they teach us the lesson that in man, as in animals, there may be a
difference in the value of the fats we acquire, according as they are
gained by one means or by another.

The recent researches of L. Langer have certainly shown that the fatty
tissues of man vary at different ages, in the proportion of the fatty
acids they contain.

I have had occasion, of late years, to watch with interest the process
of somewhat rapid but quite wholesome gain in flesh in persons subjected
to the treatment which I shall by and by describe. Most of these persons
were treated by massage, and I have been accustomed to question the
masseur or masseuse as to the manner in which the change takes place.
Usually it is first seen in the face and neck, then it is noticed in the
back and flanks, next in the belly, and finally in the limbs, the legs
coming last in the order of gain, and sometimes remaining comparatively
thin long after other parts have made remarkable and visible gain.
These observations have been checked by careful measurements, so that I
am sure of their correctness for people who fatten while at rest in bed.
The order of increase might be different in people who fatten while