in the Intestines of living Animal;. 37 
éthers buried near it, for the purpose of building a vault, and the 
flesh in all of them was completely converted mto adipocere or 
spermaceti. In Stowe’s History of London, this part of Shore- 
ditch is stated to be a morass, and since that time the ground 
has been raised eight feet. The clerk and the grave-digger ob- 
serve, that at the full and new moon the water in the sewer rises 
two feet, and that at those times there is water found in the 
graves, which at other times are dry. Hey 
The current of water, which passes through the colon, while 
the loculated lateral parts are full of solid matter, places the solid 
contents in somewhat similar circumstances to dead bodies in 
the banks of a common sewer. 
The circumstance of ambergris, which contains sixty per cent. 
of fat, being found, in immense quantities, in the lower intestines 
of the spermaceti whales, and never higher up than seven feet 
from the anus, is an undeniable proof of fat being formed in the 
intestines ; and, as the ambergris is only met with in whales out 
of health, it is most probably collected there from the absorbents 
under the influence of disease, not acting so as to take it inte 
the constitution. 
Ambergris is found in lumps from fourteen to more than one 
hundred pounds each ; it is not to be distinguished in its appear- 
ance from the fieces, but when exposed to the air it grows hard; 
a lump has been found in the sea weighing one hundred and 
eighty-two pounds *, 
In the human colon, solid masses of fat are sometimes met 
with in a diseased state of that canal, and are called scybala; 
these are in all respects similar to ambergris. 
Concretions of olive cil and mucus found in the human in- 
testines must be formed in the same way. A case of this kind 
was communicated to me by our associate Dr. Babington in the 
following letter + 
« My dear sir, 17, Aldermanbury, Feb. 2, 1813. 
* The following are the circumstances relating to the change 
produced upon olive oil, by passing through the stomach, and in- 
testines of the elderly person whose case | mentioned to you at 
the last meeting of our Animal Chemistry Society. The lady in 
question had for several years past suffered from severe affections 
of the stomach, which, from the attendant symptoms, were con- 
sidered as occasioned by the irritation of biliary concretions. 
Many remedies having been resorted to without affording her 
other than temporary benefit, she was advised to try the effects 
of olive oil, taken to the quantity of two or three ounces at a 
' 4ime, and to be repeated as circumstances might require. From 
* Vide Phil Trans, 1783, 
C3 this 
