Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/378

 374: CORPULENCE CORREA DE SERRA and starches are hydrates of carbon, contain- ing a much larger proportion of oxygen and also no nitrogen. Starch is easily changed into sugar, and sugar may he converted into a fatty compound by loss of oxygen, a change that is often effected artificially in the labora- tory. Corpulence is due to an excess of hydro- carbon in the system, and is of course most directly favored by oleaginous food, such as fat meat, butter, gravies, milk, nuts, and Indian corn, which contains a large proportion of oil. But although these fatty foods are excluded from the diet, the hydrocarbons may still be elaborated in the system out of the starch and sugar of bread, potatoes, rice, tapioca, arrow- root, and various other vegetables, fruits, and roots. If these be freely indulged in, corpu- lence can be promoted under a regimen which strictly excludes the fatty constituents of diet. The predisposition above referred to consists in constitutional tendencies to carry on these transformations. Leanness may be due to a low power of digestion, to a defective capacity of assimilating fats, or a want of ability to turn starch and sugar into fat ; while on the other hand strong digestion and vigorous assimilation may tend to produce a surplus of oily material which remains unconsumed. Alcoholic stimu- lants, which quicken the vital processes, in- crease digestion, and perhaps furnish hydro- carbon for respiration, are generally favorable to the deposit of fat. Physiologists also assert that the free use of aqueous drinks is promotive of fattening. The most effectual way to pre- vent corpulence, therefore, is by a regimen that rejects all those substances that are convertible into fat. If this practice is strictly pursued, it is certain to reduce obesity. It may be neces- sary to live upon an almost exclusive nitroge- nous diet, as the azotized principles fibrine, albumen, and caseine, which go to renew the waste of the tissues, are not convertible into fat. A purely nitrogenous diet, however, would be fatal, and is impossible with the employment of ordinary foods. Aliments that are mainly nitrogenous are still associated with small but variable proportions of starchy and oily princi- ples. A normal diet, as indicated by Liebig, requires the proportion of tissue-forming to respiratory principles to be in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 6. A diet for reducing corpulence will simply reduce the non-nitrogenous substances much below this standard. A strict regimen of lean meat, lean fish, cheese, peas, beans, cabbage, turnips, and acidulous fruits which are low in sugar and starch, if thoroughly car- ried out, is certain to diminish corpulence. It is proper, however, to state that according to the latest physiology the fats have a very impor- tant function in promoting the healthy nutri- tion of the nitrogenous elements. Consump- tion is held to consist in the defective assimila- tion of pulmonary tissue, and an oleaginous diet is prescribed as a remedy for this malady. Cod-liver oil is administered, not because it has any specific virtue in curing consumption, but because it generally proves easily digestible when other fatty substances fail to be freely assimilated. CORPUS CHRISTI (Lat., the body of Christ), a festival of the Roman Catholic church, cele- brated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. It is called by the French Fete-Lieu, feast of God. The Catholic church holds that the proper time of the festival is Thursday, the eve of Good Friday, because on the night before his death Christ instituted the eucharist ; but as the sadness begotten by the commemoration of Christ's death is supposed to absorb every other feeling during Holy Week, so the first Thursday after the paschal season is chosen to celebrate with befitting solemnity the real pres- ence of Christ in the sacrament. Hence the procession in Rome and in all Catholic coun- tries, in which the consecrated host is carried through the decorated streets and public places. The first decree enjoining a separate festival was that of a synod held in Lie"ge in 1246. Pope Urban IV. in 1264 commanded its ob- servance by the whole church, placing it on the same footing as the solemnities of Christ- mas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost. CORPUS CHRISTI, a post village and the capital of Nueces co., Texas, on the neck of the peninsula which separates Corpus Christi and Nueces bays, 178 m. S. by E. of Austin ; pop. in 1870, 2,140, of whom 288 were colored, and 707 of foreign birth. It enjoys an active trade, and has regular steamboat communication with New Orleans. The business part of the town is situated at the foot of a bluff from 80 to 100 ft. high, the upper part of which is occupied by pleasant dwellings. It has a good harbor. Before the Mexican war, the American army under Taylor was encamped here from August, 1845, to March, 1846. CORPUS JURIS. See CIVIL LAW. CORREA DE SERRA, Jose Francisco, a Portu- guese naturalist, born at Serpa in Alemtejo in 1750, died at the baths of Rainha in 1823. He was educated in Rome and Naples, was admitted to holy orders, returned to Portugal in 1777, and in 1779 was made perpetual sec- retary of the academy recently instituted at Lisbon. He collected cabinets of natural his- tory, especially of botany, established a labora- tory for scientific research, and prepared for the press numerous unpublished documents relating to the history of Portugal. Accused before the inquisition, he escaped to Paris in 1786, but was permitted to return to Portugal after the death of Pedro III. At Paris he had been intimately associated with the naturalist Broussonnet, and he became the host of the latter when he fled in disguise from the reign of terror to Lisbon. Endangered by the de- tection of Broussonnet, he took refuge first in Gibraltar and then in London, where he ar- rived in 1796. He was Portuguese counsellor of legation at Paris from 1802 to 1813, when he sailed to the United States, where he con- tinued his scientific studies, and in 1816 be-