(from corpus), an obese state of body, or the condition of a person overloaded with flesh or fat.

Among the Lacedemonians a kind of infamy attached to corpulency. In some eastern countries on the contrary, at the present day, the perfection of female beauty is supposed to consist in a state of obesity that incapacitates its victim for using her feet. The following instances of obesity are selected as being among the most remarkable on record:

A man and a woman are mentioned by Sennerius, an eminent German physician of the 17th century, whose respective weights were 600 and 450 pounds. Bright, of Malden in Essex, a respectable tallow-chandler and grocer, who died in 1750, aged twenty-eight, weighed 616 pounds. It has been said that the capacity of his waistcoat was such that it could inclose seven persons of ordinary size, and that his stocking would easily admit a child of four years of age. Daniel Lambert, who died in 1809, in his fortieth year, supposed to have been the heaviest man that ever lived, was of the enormous weight of 52 st. 12 lb., or 740 pounds. It is related of Ciapino Vitelli, Marquis of Cortona, a noted general under the Duke of Alba, that by drinking vinegar he so reduced his body from a state of enormous obesity, that he could fold his skin about him like a garment. Whatever degree of credit may be accorded to the effects produced upon the marquis, it is well known that vinegar is a favourite remedy for corpulence among the ignorant, and that many have had occasion to deplore their temerity by experience of its baneful effects upon the system.

The most approved remedy for excessive corpulence (provided it be not engendered or accompanied by other disease) is liquor potassae. Dr Chambers, in his excellent little treatise "On Corpulence," observes of this remedy, that "if given in milk-and-water, we may safely commence..." with half a drachm, and raise the dose to a drachm, and a drachm and a half; three times a day." He also illustrates its use in a variety of cases, including that of a lady who was upwards of 28 stones in weight, and unable to walk, but who derived so much benefit from its use that in no long time she was able to walk several miles a day with comfort.

It may be necessary, however, to caution the inexperienced against the indiscriminate employment of this powerful alkaline remedy, which should in no instance be resorted to without the sanction of a competent medical adviser.