In a critic summary of the question of fatty degeneration, A. E. Taylor1 points out that there has been a great deal written about fatty degeneration and very little work done. The current pathologic teaching is that in fatty degeneration the proteids of the diseased cells become converted into fats. The very significance of the word "degeneration," as contrasted with infiltration, seems to imply this idea as to the origin of the fat.
After a careful review of the original work bearing on this problem, Taylor reaches the conclusions that the origin of fats from proteids under physiologic or pathologic conditions has not been demonstrated, the weight of the evidence being in favor of regarding the so-called fatty degeneration as an infiltration of fat formed from carbohydrates. This position, he says, is provisional only, and future work must confirm or reverse the above conclusions.
Simultaneously with Taylor's review there