CORPULENCY, the state of a person too much loaded with flesh or fat.
Corpulence is the occasion of various diseases, and particularly the apoplexy. It was held infamous among the ancient Lacedæmonians.
Sennertus mentions a man that weighed 600 pounds, and a maid 36 years of age who weighed 450. Bright of Malden, who died at the age of 29 years in 1750, weighed 616 pounds. Chiapin Vitelli, marquis of Cerona, a noted Spanish general in his time, from an
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excessive corpulency, is said to have reduced himself by drinking of vinegar, to such a degree of leanness, that he could fold his skin several times round him.
Castile soap, in the form of a bolus, an electuary, pills, or dissolved in a gill or more of soft water, from one to four drachms taken at bed-time, is strongly recommended with a view of reducing corpulency, in a discourse on its nature, causes, and cure, by Malcolm Fleming, M. D. Lond. 1760. See MEDICINE Index.