ON ADIPOCIRE, AND ITS FORMATION. 5) 
my medical friends, who have had experience in this matter, and find them to hold the 
same opinions. Prof. Leidy, who macerated with water the bodies of small animals, in 
stoppered bottles, to obtain their skeletons, found that the deposition of adipocire upon the 
bones was quite abundant. 
The physiological question of the formation of fat, has been fully discussed within the 
past ten years, and it has been proven by diet and analysis, that herbivorous animals pos- 
sess more fat than is taken in their food; but whether the fat be formed wholly from non- 
nitrogenized or from nitrogenized bodies, or partially from both, is yet undecided. Patho- — 
logical considerations from the fatty degeneration of several of the organs, where the fat 18 
found both within and without the cell,* appear likewise to have divided scientific men as 
to its origin, whether from a change of the proteine compounds of the organs, or from an 
abnormal plastic activity. The connexion of the organs of generation with the deposit of 
fat, and the increase of the latter after castration, is worthy of consideration; for the 
cutting off the supply of the highly albuminous semen, gives an impulse to the fat forma- 
tion. The flesh and the fat of the body stand in an intimate relation to each other, and 
neither the non-nitrogenized nor the nitrogenized diet exclusively is conducive to health. 
Repose is necessary, (with a proper diet,) to the formation of fat, and as the activity of the 
muscles requires their reparation from the food, perhaps it is as much this wearing away 
by activity, that hinders the formation of fat, as the increased combustion by the quick- 
ened respiration. It therefore appears to me probable that both classes of food conduce to 
the fat formation. 
It was thought that the study of adipocire would throw some light upon the question, 
whether fat be formed from proteine compounds, and I was surprised to find the great 
difference of opinion as to the formation and nature of this body, and in general, as to the 
changes that bodies undergo in grave yards. These various changes are ascribed by under- 
takers to the nature of the soil, to its dryness or moisture; but in a late removal of a grave 
yard in this city, some bodies were found converted into adipocire, the graves of which 
were contiguous to those in which decomposition had advanced to its full extent, leaving 
nothing but the skeleton. The preservation of some bodies seems inexplicable, according 
to our present knowledge, of which I may cite the well known case of General Washington, 
(who was not embalmed,) who having reposed in his tomb for more than forty years, was 
so perfectly preserved, as to have been recognised from the resemblance of his portraits. 
The problems proposed for this research were :— 
Ist. The chemical examination of different kinds of adipocire. 
2d. To watch the decomposition of flesh with water, and imitating the condition of a 
body in moist ground. 
* Lehmann. 
