Fat

• Main Author: Morgan, Elaine
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 1994
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195094312.003.0009; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52320757/isbn-9780195094312-book-part-9.pdf

Abstract In 1930 a young marine biologist called Alister Hardy returned from an Antarctic expedition and read a book by the eminent anatomist Professor Frederick Wood Jones. In it he came across the following passage: The peculiar relationship of the skin to the underlying fascia is a very real distinction, familiar enough to anyone who has repeatedly skinned human sub jects and any other member of the Primates. The bed of subcutaneous fat adherent to the skin, so conspicuous in Man, is possibly related to his apparent hair reduction; though it is difficult to see why, if no other factor is involved, there should be such a basal difference between Man and the Chimpanzee. Hardy was forcibly struck by what he read because he knew from first-hand experience that just such a layer of fat, bonded to the skin, was a common characteristic of most aquatic mammals.