IS IT FORMED FROM PROTEID ? 293 



Adipocere is the fatty substance into which a corpse changes 

 on long immersion in water. It was supposed to result from the 

 actual change of muscle proteid into fat. What happens, in truth, 

 is the putrefactive colliquation of the proteids, and the fat set 

 free from its depots floats in the water and percolates through 

 the tissues. 



Lehmann put in flowing water pieces of muscle, which con- 

 tained 3-66 grm. per cent, neutral fat, and found after exposure for 

 some weeks 1 grm. per cent, of fat and 6*27 grm. per cent, of free 

 fatty acids. This change was due to the action of bacteria, as 

 shown by Fr. Kraus, who kept pieces of organs obtained bacteria- free 

 in sterilised water at 38-39 C. and found no change in the fat. 



Cheese. Bacteria can undoubtedly break down proteid and set 

 free among other degradation products fatty acid. Thus fresh 

 cheese which yielded 2'16 grm. ether extract, after fourteen days 

 ripening yielded 4-3 grm. Windisch found the ether extract of 

 Camembert cheese increase from 49'78 to 56*75 per cent, in the 

 process of ripening. That fungi have the power of forming fatty 

 acids and fats out of proteid does not prove that the same thing 

 holds good for the cells of the animal body, but it at least renders 

 it more probable. 



Fly-maggots. Hoffmann collected the eggs of blow-flies and 

 analysed a portion for fat. The rest he set upon a weighed 

 quantity of coagulated blood. The fat percentage in the blood he 

 also analysed. He found the developed maggots contained ten 

 times more fat than that in the blood. Pfltiger made two ob- 

 jections to this experiment. Firstly, the micro-organisms in the 

 blood decomposed the proteid. Secondly, such small amounts were 

 used in the experiments that errors in analysis (ether extraction of 

 fat) rendered the results quite untrustworthy. Thus while an 

 ethereal extract of blood yielded to one observer 0*18 per cent, fat, 

 a boiling alcohol and chloroform extract yielded in the hands of 

 another no less than 14 per cent. 0. Frank repeated Hoffmann's 

 experiment, growing the maggots on meat extracted with ether; 

 but the uncertainty of the extraction and the presence of carbo- 

 hydrate in the meat rendered the positive result he obtained of 

 little value. 



