hi the Intestines of living Ani?nals.- 1^9 



entirely within my own knowledj^e, 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, 

 i7c^o, and was buried in a grave ten feet deep at the east end 

 of Shoreditch church-yard, ten feet to the east of the great 

 common sewer, which runs north and south, and has always 

 a current of water in it, the usual level of which is eight feet 

 below the surface of the ground, and two feet above the level 

 of the coffins in the graves. In August, 1811, the body was 

 taken up with some others buried near it, for the purpose of 

 building a vault, and the flesh in all of them was completely 

 converted into adipocere or spermaceti. In Stowe's History 

 of London, this part of Shoreditch is stated to be a morass, 

 and since that time the ground has been raised eight feet. 

 The clerk and the grave-digger observe, that at the full and 

 new moon the water in the sewer rises two feet, and that at 

 those times, there is water/ound in the graves, which at other 

 times are dry. 



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 Ijwer 

 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 



Xa 



