[From the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.]
The formation of fat is interesting, both from a chemical and a
physiological point of view. The relation of lignine starch and sugar
to alcohol, afforded reasons for Liebig’s theory of the formation of
fat in the body. Recent experiments by Liebig, Bopp, Guckelberger,
Keller and others, on the formation of the lower terms of the series
of fatty acids by the oxidation and putrefaction of the blood-forming
substances, rendered possible the formation of the higher members,
from albumen, fibrin and caseine, by similar means,[1] for example, by
a less intense degree of oxidation. It was thought that the study of
adipocire, with a view to this question, would perhaps throw some light
upon it; and upon reading all the articles within my reach, upon this
body, from the time of its discovery by Fourcroy, I find a considerable
difference of opinion with regard to it.
In 1785, Fourcroy examined a portion of a liver which had hung for
ten years in the air in the laboratory of de la Salle; it was fatty,
smooth, and unctuous to the touch. Potash lye dissolved a portion
of the liver completely, forming a soap. Subsequently, when he had
examined the fat of grave yards, and spermaceti, he proposed to
name these three fats, viz.: of biliary calculi, spermaceti, and
from grave yards, adipocire, considering them to be identical, and
possessing an intermediate nature between fat and wax. Chevreul, in his
fifth Memoire, corrects this error, and calls the fat of gall stones
cholesterine, and that of spermaceti cetine.
In 1786-7, Fourcroy had an opportunity of studying the fat of grave
yards, in the removal of the bodies from the Cemetière des Innocens,
a work which lasted for two years, and which was supervised by Dr.
Thouret, who was placed there to care for the health of the workmen.
The substance was abundantly found, and especially in the “fouilles,”
or ditches, where the slightly made coffins of the poorer classes had
been piled one upon another; the trench being open for some time until
it was filled with bodies, when it was covered with a slight quantity
of earth; on opening the trenches after some fifteen years, the bodies
were converted into adipocire; they were flattened by mutual pressure,
and had impressions on their surface of the grave clothes. Fourcroy’s
analysis proved it to be a soap of ammonia, with phosphate of lime, and
the fat, melted at 52.5° C.[2] He supposed adipocire to arise from the
putrefaction of all animal matter, except hair, nails, and bones, for
he states that in the carcasses of all animals exposed upon the borders
of pieces of water, a fatty, white, fusible substance resembling
spermaceti is found.
Perhaps the earliest record on this change from flesh to fat, is to be
found in Lord Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum, where he says, (article Fat,)
“Nearly all flesh may be turned into a fatty substance, by cutting it
into pieces and putting it into a glass covered with parchment, then
letting the glass stand six or seven hours in boiling water.” This may
be a profitable experiment for making fat or grease; but then it must
be practised upon such flesh as is not edible, viz.: that of horses,
dogs, bears, foxes, badgers, &c.
George Smith Gibbes, 1794, observed that in Oxford, in the pits where
were thrown the remains of dissections, and at the bottom of which
flowed a gentle current of water, large quantities of adipocire were
formed. He placed a piece of beef in the river in a box pierced with
holes, and also a piece in which putrefaction in the air had commenced,
and adipocire resulted in both cases. He proposes to make use of this
property to utilize the dead bodies of animals, and states that nitric
acid will effect the same change in three or four days.
John Bostock (Nicholson’s Journal, March, 1803,) digested muscular
fibre with dilute nitric acid, and washed with water: the result was
a clear, yellow fat, of the consistence of tallow, melting at 33° C.
Is less soluble in alcohol than Fourcroy’s substance: the greater part
deposits nearly white on cooling, and the residue can be precipitated
from the alcohol by water. Hot ether dissolves it and abandons it on
cooling; caustic alkali forms a soap; ammonia dissolves but little of
the fat.
Chevreul, on repeating this experiment with pure fibrine, could obtain
no fat. Hartkol, (Ure’s Dict. art. Adipocire,) experimented for
twenty-five years on adipocire, and concluded that it is not formed in
dry grounds, that in moist earth the fat does not increase, but changes
to a fetid mass, incapable of being made into candles. Animals in
running water leave a fat after three years, which is more abundant in
the intestines than in the muscles, and more fat is formed in stagnant,
than in running water.
Chevreul, 1812, found the fat of church yards to contain margaric and
oleic acids, combined with yellow colouring and odorous matters, also
lime, potash, oxide of iron, lactic acid salts and azotized matter. He
supposes the fatty acids are liberated from their glycerine by ammonia,
which subsequently itself escapes, and that adipocire is thus formed
from the original fat of the body.
Gay Lussac, (An. de Ch. et de Ph. iv. 71,) adopts the same views. He
subjected finely chopped muscular fibre deprived of its fat by ether,
to the action of water, and did not succeed in forming adipocire.
Von Bibra, (Annalen der Chem. und Ph. 56, p. 106,) in an examination of
the flesh of the leg of a Peruvian mummy, a child, obtained 19.7 per
cent, of fat, which he supposes to have been formed from the muscles.
In comparison, dry human muscle from several analyses by himself, gives
nine per cent. of fat. The muscular fibre of the mummy, after treatment
with ether, presented the same appearance under the microscope, as
fresh muscle placed in the same circumstances. Bibra states in the same
article, that he is fully convinced of the change of muscle to fat,
having obtained a human corpse in which all the parts of flesh were
nearly wholly converted into fat.
Blondeau, (Comptes Rendus, Sep. 6th, 1847, and Ch. Gazette, same year,
p. 422,) arrived at the same conclusion from an examination of the
Roquefort cheese manufacture. This cheese is placed in dark, damp, cool
cellars to ripen. Before this treatment, the cheese contained 1∕200 of
its weight of fat, and after two months in the cellars the caseine was
almost wholly converted into a fat, which melts at 40°, boils at 80°,
and decomposes at 150°C. The unaltered caseine could be removed from
it, by mere melting with boiling water. In an additional experiment, a
pound of beef free from fat was slightly salted, surrounded with paste,
and placed in a cellar; after two months, it had undergone no putrid
decomposition, and was converted, for the greater part, into a fatty
body, presenting the greatest analogy to hog’s lard. In these instances
a number of parasite plants are observed on the material, and it is
necessary to scrape the cheese from time to time, to free it from these
mycodermic plants, which are reproduced with fresh energy. As these
plants require ammonia for their development, Blondeau supposes it can
only come from the nitrogen of its caseine, and that fat is one of the
results of the caseine decomposition.
Gregory, (Annalen der Chem. und. Ph. 61, p. 362,) examined the
adipocire of a fat hog which had died of sickness, and had been buried
for fifteen years in moist ground; at the bottom of the grave was the
adipocire in a layer hardly an inch in thickness; it contained ¼
stearic and ¼ margaric and oleic acids, together with from 1.5 to 3.5
per cent. lime. The glycerine was all gone, and so was the bone earth,
which together with the flesh were removed, as Gregory supposes, by the
carbonic acid of the rain water, leaving the original fatty acids of
the body.
Prof. Hünefeld, (Jour. für Pr. ch. 7, p. 49,) examined a loaf of rye
bread, which had been buried for at least eighty years in a turf-moor,
and found 2.2 per cent. of a waxy or fatty substance, and he refers to
an examination by Bracconot, of a mouldered wheat bread containing,
among other substances, a fatty body. Hünefeld supposes that the
substance of the bread was displaced by the turf material, the form
of the loaf being retained; and admits the possibility of the bread
substance partaking in part a change into resin and waxy humus.
R. Wagner, (Ch. Gazette, vol. 9, p. 306,) transplanted the recently
removed testicles of rabbits and frogs into the abdominal cavity of
fowls; the testicles of fowls into other fowls and pigeons, those of
pigeons into fowls, and fresh crystalline lens into fowls and pigeons
which were killed after ten or fifteen days. The testicles of frogs
contained three per cent. of fat, which was augmented to 5.15 per cent.
In one case the crystalline lens, after the experiment, contained 47.86
per cent. of fat; in a number of other experiments on lenses, the
result was of from 7 to 15 per cent. of fat, calculated for the dry
substance of the lens; carefully cleaned portions of frog intestines
filled with coagulated blood of pigeons and calves, fat free muscle
from the thigh of a frog, and boiled white of hen’s egg, in similar
conditions, all gave fat.
These experiments were repeated by Husson and Burdach,[3] enveloping
the nitrogenized substances in bags or coatings of gutta percha,
caoutchouc and collodion. They found the substance well preserved, but
no change into fat; so that admission of the animal juices must conduce
to it, if the change be possible. Burdach placed porous vegetable
substances, as wood and tinder, in the abdominal cavity, and found
a deposit of fat on them, and which was imbibed in the pores, which
speaks against the change in question. Finally, Burdach determined the
fat of the egg of _Linnæus stagnalis_, and detected a considerable
increase of it during the development of the embryo; but, on the other
hand, the egg contains sugar from which the fat could have been formed;
and in opposition to this the quantity of sugar in hens’ eggs has been
noticed rather to increase than diminish during incubation.
Quain & Virchow quoted by Lehmann,[4] examined muscle changed in
macerating troughs to adipocire, and are of opinion that the fibrine is
here changed to fat. I have questioned my medical friends, who have
had experience in this matter, and find them to hold the same opinions.
Prof. Leidy, who macerated with water the bodies of small animals, in
stoppered bottles, to obtain their skeletons, found that the deposition
of adipocire upon the bones was quite abundant.
The physiological question of the formation of fat, has been fully
discussed within the past ten years, and it has been proven by diet and
analysis, that herbivorous animals possess more fat than is taken in
their food; but whether the fat be formed wholly from non-nitrogenized
or from nitrogenized bodies, or partially from both, is yet undecided.
Pathological considerations from the fatty degeneration of several of
the organs, where the fat is found both within and without the cell,[5]
appear likewise to have divided scientific men as to its origin,
whether from a change of the proteine compounds of the organs, or from
an abnormal plastic activity. The connexion of the organs of generation
with the deposit of fat, and the increase of the latter after
castration, is worthy of consideration; for the cutting off the supply
of the highly albuminous semen, gives an impulse to the fat formation.
The flesh and the fat of the body stand in an intimate relation to
each other, and neither the non-nitrogenized nor the nitrogenized
diet exclusively is conducive to health. _Repose_ is necessary, (with
a proper diet,) to the formation of fat, and as the activity of the
muscles requires their reparation from the food, perhaps it is as much
this wearing away by activity, that hinders the formation of fat, as
the increased combustion by the quickened respiration. It therefore
appears to me probable that both classes of food conduce to the fat
formation.
It was thought that the study of adipocire would throw some light upon
the question, whether fat be formed from proteine compounds, and I was
surprised to find the great difference of opinion as to the formation
and nature of this body, and in general, as to the changes that
bodies undergo in grave yards. These various changes are ascribed by
undertakers to the nature of the soil, to its dryness or moisture; but
in a late removal of a grave yard in this city, some bodies were found
converted into adipocire, the graves of which were contiguous to those
in which decomposition had advanced to its full extent, leaving nothing
but the skeleton. The preservation of some bodies seems inexplicable,
according to our present knowledge, of which I may cite the well known
case of General Washington, (who was not embalmed,) who having reposed
in his tomb for more than forty years, was so perfectly preserved, as
to have been recognised from the resemblance of his portraits. The
problems proposed for this research were:—
1st. The chemical examination of different kinds of adipocire.
2d. To watch the decomposition of flesh with water, and imitating the
condition of a body in moist ground.
With regard to the first of these, I possessed the following specimens
of adipocire:
(_a_) Two from sheep buried at the country seat of the late J. P.
Wetherill.
(_b_) Two from human subjects, which I obtained myself from a grave
yard.
(_c_) From a fossil ox, presented by Prof. Leidy.
(_a_) SHEEP ADIPOCIRE.
Specimens of this adipocire were presented to the Academy of Natural
Sciences, by my uncle, who found them at his country seat, opposite
Valley Forge, buried in moist ground, near a drain which led water from
a spring-house. About ten years previously, the shepherd in charge of a
flock of sheep indulged in a drunken spree, and in the meanwhile some
fifteen of the sheep in his care died from neglect, and were buried in
the above mentioned spot. My uncle, who was present at the exhumation
of the sheep, stated that in some of the remains, the exterior forms
of the muscles were very distinct. The two specimens I obtained were
in lumps, amorphous under the microscope, floating on water; of greasy
feel, and rank mutton smell, mingled with a peculiar disagreeable
fundamental smell, that I have observed in all my specimens of
adipocire, including the fossil one. Heated in a capsule with water,
a transparent fat floats melted on the surface; heated alone in a
platinum crucible, it melts and burns with a smoky flame, leaving a
slight residue, which effervesces with hydrochloric acid, and contains
beside sand and a little iron, principally lime. Under the microscope
with moderate powers, it is white, fatty, and granular, disappearing
with Canada balsam; with higher powers it is amorphous: melted on the
glass slide covered with thin glass, is crystalline on cooling, in
groups of plumose crystals, which give a beautiful play of colours
with polarized light; a drop of its weak alcoholic solution evaporated
spontaneously on glass gave the same appearance of crystallization.
Water added to this solution precipitated it in the form of a pure
white amorphous powder: distilled per se, leaves a slight carbonaceous
residue, and gives a volatile fat, yellowish, and cryst, on cooling.
This volatile fat is soluble in hot alcohol, and precipitates partly
on cooling. The weight of material was seventy grammes; it was melted
in the water bath, and filtered through paper in a hot funnel; the
filtered solidified fat was of a light coffee colour, and weighed
fifty-four grammes; in a capillary tube, is soft at 54°, fluid at 62°;
on cooling becomes opaque at 50°. When pressed in paper, the latter is
greased by oleic acid; it contains no ammonia, nor any nitrogen by the
potassium test; the residue on the filter (together with the filter)
was boiled with alcohol, filtered hot on a weighed filter, and washed
with alcohol. This alcoholic solution deposited twelve grammes of fatty
acid, by spontaneous evaporation, during the summer. The crystals
at first deposited were white and warty; a portion of the alcoholic
solution on a glass slide, exhibited with the microscope, white, curved
dendritic forms, arranged stellate; in the capillary tube, they begin
to melt at 53°, are fluid at 62°, and on cooling begin to cloud at
58°, and are opaque at 50°. The residue on the filter weighed about
four grammes, and viewed under the microscope, consisted of membranous
matter, wool, dirt, and the white element of cellular tissue; it
gave ammonia with potassa solution, and nitrogen by Laissaigne’s
test, together with a strong smell of phosphuretted hydrogen when the
water was added in the latter test. This residue burned, gave thirty
per cent. of ash. The following is the per centage result for the
adipocire:—
Solid fatty acids, a little oleic acid, and coally matter, 94.2
Membranous matter and cellular tissue, 2.3
Ash and dirt, 3.5
—————
100.0
The portion of fatty acid which passed through the filter by melting,
contained 0.73 per cent. of a dark-coloured ash, principally lime, with
iron, and traces of phosphoric and sulphuric acids, potash and soda.
The potash and soda were detected by Dr. Lawrence Smith’s beautiful
method by polarized light, which I have frequently used with success.
In this instance, the quantity of material was so small, that neither
the potash nor soda could be detected by the usual method.
[An experiment was tried to ascertain whether the fatty acids would
dissolve phosphate of lime. About six or eight grammes of fatty acid,
(the residue from the hot press of the candle factories, crystallized
from much alcohol, and of which one gramme left no appreciable ash
by experiment) were kept for half an hour melted with pulverized
bone ashes. One gramme of this gave an ash of only a quarter of
a milligramme; when this was dissolved in hydrochloric acid and
neutralized by ammonia, it was impossible to conclude whether there was
a precipitate or not.]
Sixty grammes of the fatty acids were then saponified with potash lye,
according to Chevreul’s proportions, during which operation neither
ammonia nor cholesterine could be detected. The soap was decomposed
by tartaric acid, and washed several times by melting with water;
it dissolved thus in alcohol with reddish brown colour, and after
filtering hot, was suffered to deposit the greater part of its fat
on cooling. The crystals thus deposited were nacreous scales, and of
lustre like the feathers of moth wings; when melted, they weighed 26
grammes, and had a goat-like smell; by further standing, the alcohol
deposited four grammes of very translucent crystals, with traces of
stellar groupings. A third crop of crystals by spontaneous evaporation
was obtained, which was small in quantity, weighing 0.6 grammes, and,
when melted, cooled with a flat, waxy, surface, with traces of stellar
aggregations. The mother alcohol of this last crystallization, was
treated with an alcoholic solution of acetate of lead. The lead salts,
treated in the usual manner by ether, yielded a few drops of very
highly coloured oleic acid. From the insoluble lead salts, the fat was
separated.
The alcoholic solution from which the oleate and other lead salts
were precipitated by acetate of lead, was evaporated to dryness, and
treated by ether, when another portion of oleic acid was obtained. It
results from this that the quantity of oleic acid in the adipocire is
small. The greater portion of the lead salt was insoluble in ether and
alcohol, its fat was separated and added to the first crop of crystals
which fell from the alcoholic solution of the fat from saponification.
To ascertain whether any glycerine was in combination with the fatty
acids in the adipocire, the aqueous solution from which the crop was
precipitated by tartaric acid during the purification of the fat, was
heated, filtered from small fat globules, and after removing the tartar
deposit, subjected to distillation. The acid residue of the retort
was neutralized by carb. potash, and after evaporating on the water
bath was exhausted with absolute alcohol, which proved the absence of
glycerine, as it gave on evaporating nothing but a small residue of
colouring matter, which was yellow, and of a bitter taste.
The distillate in this experiment had a goat-like smell, and it was
doubtful whether it reacted acid to litmus paper. Baryta water was
added to alkaline reaction, for which but a small quantity was needed,
and the solution evaporated. There was but little residue, which, on
the addition of a drop of hydrochloric acid and water, emitted a rancid
smell, but no oil globule appeared; the volatile fatty acids may,
therefore, be considered to be present in the adipocire only in faint
traces.
The following melting points were obtained:--The first crop of crystals
from the alcoholic solution of the fat after saponification, which,
when melted, cooled with a stellated surface, tried three times by
dipping the thermometer bulb in the melted solution, and noting the
temperature when it became opaque, gave 55° for the solidifying point.
In a capillary tube, begins to melt at 57°, fluid at 59°, on cooling,
opaque at 55°; this portion was taken from the capsule on melting the
fat, before the whole mass was melted: another portion taken when all
was fluid, and after stirring, gave the same results.
The crystalline appearance of the second crop of crystals from the
alcoholic solution after saponification, when melted and suffered
to cool in a capsule, is similar to that of the first crop; in the
capillary tube, begins to melt at 53°, fluid at 54°-55°, on cooling,
crystals form in the tube at 51°, and is opaque at 50°. The melting
point of the third crop of crystals was 50.5°. In ascertaining the
melting points of the different fats described in this paper, I tried
the various modes in use, and settled at first upon the following:--A
beaker of distilled water (which must be boiled just before using, to
prevent air globules settling upon the capillary tubes, which would
falsify the result) is placed upon wire gauze upon a retort stand in
front of a window, the thermometer hangs, by a string, in this water
from another stand, and the lamp must be moveable from under the beaker
glass. A piece of string is tied so loosely around the top of the
(cylindrical) mercury reservoir of the thermometer, that the different
capillary tubes may be readily slipped in and out on raising the
thermometer from the water; the heat from the lamp must be such that
the temperature of the water rises gradually; the capillary tubes are
so placed that they lie closely to the mercury of the thermometer, and
when the temperature approaches the melting point, the water is stirred
with the thermometer to equalize the heat, the lamp is then removed,
and the point of solidification observed in the usual way. I doubt very
much the use of noting the point of solidification, as it is influenced
so much by extraneous circumstances. The cooling of water and certain
salts below their solidifying points, is well known, and the same must
take place in these instances. Heintz has noticed how the thermometer
rose ten degrees in determining the solidifying point of melted human
fat. In one of my experiments, the fat in the tube was separated by
minute air globules into three or four columns, quite close together;
in observing the fusing point, they all melted at the same instant;
but in solidifying, one would be quite clear while those on either
side had become opaque, no matter how much the tube was stirred or
vibrated by striking the beaker glass. After having observed this in
several instances, I abandoned taking the points of solidification,
and modified the process for the fusing point, by keeping the water as
near that point as possible, and repeatedly lifting the thermometer and
attached capillary tube out of the water for a few seconds, that the
fat might solidify, and noting the fusing point as that at which it
at once becomes liquid; this point is reached twice; first, when the
water is being heated, and secondly, as it is cooling: I have found by
repetition of the same experiment, that the degree thus obtained, is
constant from the first, and I think gives the most accurate results.
The mode of using capillary tubes for the fusing points, is convenient,
as, at the close of the experiment, they can be sealed at the open
end, and placed on a card with descriptions, for future reference. I
weighed the quantity of fat in one instance, and found that half a
milligramme was much more than enough to obtain the melting point with
the capillary tube.
(_b_) HUMAN ADIPOCIRE.
Towards the close of the year 1853, I visited a grave yard in
Philadelphia, the remains of which were being removed, and from which,
through the kindness of the superintendent, I obtained specimens of
adipocire and valuable information. The surface of the burial ground
was depressed about four or six feet below that of the neighbouring
streets, and was of a very moist nature. Many of the bodies were
converted more or less into adipocire, and of these, all had been large
persons. There was none among the remains of children. I obtained
specimens from two persons.
No. 1, was from a large man, which had been buried from ten to fifteen
years; the ground was very moist, and the coffin rotten; the grave was
seven feet deep. The adipocire was from the middle of the coffin, and
was in irregular lumps.
No. 2, was from a very large man; buried five or six years; the ground
moist, though not so much so as number one; the grave five feet deep.
The ground around the coffin was of a bloody colour, and all of the
body was decayed, except the lower portion. The shape of the rump
was plain, and the legs separate; the fat was at the bottom of the
coffin, and the bones (femur, tibia) were lying along it. The adipocire
contained an impression of the bone, was spongy and dark-coloured on
the inside; and on the outside it was smooth, white, and presented
impressions of the grave clothes, and here and there appearances as
if of the hair follicles and sebaceous glands, but which lost this
appearance when viewed with the microscope. There was no hair on this
specimen. The pieces of adipocire of this specimen were large, at the
thickest part being about three inches in thickness; they presented the
shape of different parts of the leg, though flattened; tough fibrous
bands, like aponeuroses, were seen in some parts traversing the mass of
fatty matter.
The appearance of these two specimens with the microscope, was very
similar to each other and to the sheep adipocire. Powder scraped from
them, with a fine needle, gave no appearance of fat globules, but
irregular masses, mingled with membranous matter; a portion sliced off
with a sharp knife, presented by reflected light, brilliant, white,
irregular fatty fragments, but no traces of globules. When alcohol was
added with heat, the fat disappeared, leaving membranous matter, and
fibres not-anastomosing (the white element of cellular tissue.) The
addition of acetic acid causes the fibres to disappear, and without
showing nuclei.
Portions of number one presented an appearance as if of the hair
follicles, and there were mingled with it cylindrical hairs, of an
inch and a half in length, brownish in colour, and quite fine. From
these hairs, and from its position in the coffin, adipocire number
one probably came from the abdomen. The fat from this portion gave
the same appearance under the microscope, as specimen number two. The
alcoholic solution of the fat evaporated on the microscope slide, gave
the appearance of stellated dendritic crystals, with curved branches,
resembling the so called margaric acid under the same circumstances.
The whole mass of fat in the two specimens, seems to be entangled in a
web of disintegrated membrane, and fibrous tissue. I have never been
able to detect any traces of muscular fibre under the microscope;
and Dr. Leidy, who was kind enough to examine specimens with the
microscope, communicated to me the same results. The smell of the two
specimens was peculiar; what might be called an adipocire smell; for I
have observed it in all specimens of adipocire that I have examined.
This smell is indescribable, the nearest approach to it being that of
fæces, but it is much more disagreeable.
The following melting points were observed from the original adipocire,
melted per se in watch glasses, and the fat taken up in capillary
tubes. In these specimens, (_a_) was taken from parts with _little_,
and (_b_) from parts with _much_ cellular tissue:
{ { fuses at 56°
{ (_a_) {
{ { solidifies 50°
No. 1. {
{ { fuses 50°
{ (_b_) {
{ { solidifies 43°-44°
{ { fuses 55°
{ (_a_) {
{ { solidifies 50°
No. 2. {
{ { fuses 55°
{ (_b_) {
{ { solidifies 50°
They commenced to melt a little below and to solidify a little above
these points, which were taken for perfect fluidity or opacity.
Generally in solidifying, the crystallization commenced at one point,
and spread gradually through the capillary tube.
The density varied with different portions of one and two, from below
0.7487 to 1.0, and was ascertained, by immersing specimens (freed
from external air globules) in ether of the above density, alcohol of
density 0.8365, and distilled water. The ash, no doubt, varied also;
but the following determinations were made with the whitest portions
of one and two: viz.: those of the density of ether. No. 1, contained
0.573 per cent. of ash, (1.135 gave 0.0065) which effervesced with
acid, and contained principally, lime, with traces of chlorine,
sulphuric and phosphoric acid, also iron, potassa soda, and (doubtful)
magnesia. The melting point of this portion was 52°-53°. No. 2, gave
0.18 per cent. of ash, (1.109 gave 0.002) which contained the same
substances as number one. The melting point of this fat was 53°-55°.
The two specimens of adipocire were melted with about one and a half
times their weight of ordinary alcohol, filtered hot, washed a couple
of times with hot alcohol, and pressed, the residue being weighed.
This gives an approximate per centage of the membranous and fibrous
matter, which is rather too low, owing to a little fat remaining in the
residue and filter. The specimens of adipocire were picked as far as
practicable from dark pieces.