SUS SCROFA. 



brush our clothes. The abdominal fat is used, as also the 

 blood, for food, and it yields a bezoar, principally from a mor- 

 bid concretion in the stomach of the wild hog. Even the in- 

 testines are used for chitterlings, and converted into an inferior 

 kind of lard, by being cut open and washed clean, and (after 

 the water is well pressed out of them) melted in the same 

 way as lard ; this substance is very useful for making common 

 candles, greasing wheels, and other general purposes. And, 

 to sum up all, the hog multiplies his species in a degree pro- 

 portioned to his usefulness. 



The flesh of the hog, when fresh, is easy of digestion and 

 nutritive, but it is not a food capable of being eaten for a 

 length of time with impunity. It favors obesity, and occasions 

 disorders of the skin, particularly in the sedentary. 



LARD is the officinal part of the hog, and is the fat of the 

 animal melted. Pure lard has little or no taste and no odor ; 

 its melting point is about 97 Fahrenheit. Lard is a com- 

 pound of a solid firm fat, stearine, and a semifluid substance, 

 termed claim, in the proportion of thirty-eight of the former 

 to sixty-two of the latter. 



Most fats and oils, whether of animal or vegetable origin, 

 are composed of these two ingredients, upon the relative pro- 

 portion of which their consistence respectively depends. They 

 may be obtained separate by the action of boiling alcohol, 

 which on cooling deposits the stearine and yields the elaine 

 upon evaporation. Another method is to compress fat, or 

 oil congealed by cold, within the folds of bibulous paper. 

 The elaine is absorbed by the paper, and may be separated 

 by compression under water ; the stearine remains. Elaine 

 resembles oil in appearance, is colorless when pure, congeals 

 at 20 Fahrenheit, may be evaporated unchanged in vacua, 

 has little odor and a sweetish taste, is insoluble in water but 

 soluble in boiling alcohol, and consists of carbon, oxygen, 

 and hydrogen. 



Stearine is white, concrete, fusible at 111 Fahrenheit, vol- 

 atilizable, unchanged in vacua, partly volatilized and partly 

 decomposed when heated in a retort, insipid, inodorous, 

 slightly soluble in alcohol, insoluble in water, and composed, 

 like the former principle, of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. 



Exposed to the air, lard absorbs oxygen, and becomes ran- 

 cid. It should therefore be kept in well-closed vessels, or 

 procured fresh when wanted for use. In the rancid state it 



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