36 On the Formation of Fat 
that from putrefaction, although by ne means the same, led me 
to compare them with the animal matter buried in the earth, 
which is converted into adipocere: in both cases the substance 
is in the incipient’ state of putrefaction, but that process never 
completely takes place; it is excluded from the external air, is 
either under water, or within the reach of imbibing moisture ; 
and there is no substance whatever, the chyle excepted, which 
can better supply the waste produced by the actions of growth 
and muscular exertion, than animal fat. 
‘he more I canvassed this new opinion, the greater number 
of circumstances in favour of it occurred to me; one of the 
strongest of which is, that there is no other mode I am acquainted 
with, by which animal fat can be formed. To this may be 
added the curious cireumstance of the sleeping animals, which 
lay in so large a supply of it, in a short time, to serve for their 
winter’s consumption, having a formation of the intestines al- 
most peculiar to themselves, in which there is no valve to distin- 
guish the colon, and no fixed course for that intestine; so that 
the contents pass along with more facility, and remain a shorter 
time in the canal, the food being sufficiently plentiful during the 
summer to compensate for this want of economy, by which the 
lower intestines receive more abundaat supplies for the produc- 
tion of fat. These intestines remain empty during the sleeping 
season, so that no fat can be formed in that period.—With this 
very important information, thus procured, in support of my 
opinion, I have been led to presecute this inquiry with increased 
ardour, and shall now bring forward the facts I have been able 
to ascertain in confirmation of my hypothesis. These I shall 
detail in the order in which they were acquired, thinking it bet- 
ter to lay before the Society the regular process of the investiga- 
tion, than to grasp at once at the conclusion’ which in the end 
of it I have felt myself authorised to draw. 
I shall therefore begin by stating the circumstances under 
which adipocere is formed from animal matter, most nearly re- 
sembling those in which the contents of the lower intestines in 
living animals are placed; and this I shall do from facts, entirely 
within my own knowledge, the specimens of the adipocere being 
now in my possession ; and afterwards go on by bringing forward 
proofs that a substance similar to it is formed in the colon. 
Mary Howard, aged forty-four, died on the 12th of May 1790, 
and was buried in a grave ten feet deep at the east end of Shore- 
ditch churchyard, ten feet to the east of the great common 
sewer, which rus north and south, and has always a current of 
water in it, the usual level of which is eight feet below the sur- 
face of the ground, and two feet above the level of the coffins in 
the graves. In August 18]1 the body was taken up, with some 
others 
