ON ADIPOCIRE, AND ITS FORMATION. B} 
Chevreul, on repeating this experiment with pure fibrine, could obtain no fat. Hartkol, 
(Ure’s Dict. art. Adipocire,) experimented for twenty-five years on adipocire, and concluded 
that it is not formed in dry grounds, that in moist earth the fat does not increase, but 
changes to a fetid mass, incapable of being made into candles. Animals in running water 
leave a fat after three years, which is more abundant in the intestines than in the mus- 
cles, and more fat is formed in stagnant, than in running water. 
Chevreul, 1812, found the fat of church yards to contain margaric and oleic acids, com- 
bined with yellow colouring and odorous matters, also lime, potash, oxide of iron, lactic’ 
acid salts and azotized matter. He supposes the fatty acids are liberated from their 
glycerine by ammonia, which subsequently itself escapes, and that adipocire is thus formed 
from the original fat of the body. 
Gay Lussac, (An. de Ch. et de Ph. iv. 71,) adopts the same views. He subjected finely 
chopped muscular fibre deprived of its fat by ether, to the action of water, and did not 
succeed in forming adipocire. 
Von Bibra, (Annalen der Chem. und Ph. 56, p. 106,) in an examination of the flesh of 
the leg of a Peruvian mummy, a child, obtained 19.7 per cent. of fat, which he supposes 
to have been formed from the muscles. In comparison, dry human muscle from several 
analyses by himself, gives nine per cent. of fat. ‘The muscular fibre of the mummy, after 
treatment with ether, presented the same appearance under the microscope, as fresh muscle 
placed in the same circumstances. Bibra states in the same article, that he is fully con- 
vinced of the change of muscle to fat, having obtained a human corpse in which all the 
parts of flesh were nearly wholly converted into fat. 
Blondeau, (Comptes Rendus, Sep. 6th, 1847, and Ch. Gazette, same year, p. 422,) arrived 
at the same conclusion from an examination of the Roquefort cheese manufacture. This 
cheese is placed in dark, damp, cool cellars to ripen. Before this treatment, the cheese 
‘contained ,1, of its weight of fat, and after two months in the cellars the caseine was 
almost wholly converted into a fat, which melts at 40°, boils at 80°, and decomposes at 
150°C. The unaltered caseine could be removed from it, by mere melting with boiling 
water. In an additional experiment, a pound of beef free from fat was slightly salted, sur- 
rounded with paste, and placed in a cellar; after two months, it had undergone no putrid 
decomposition, and was converted, for the greater part, into a fatty body, presenting the 
greatest analogy to hog’s lard. In these instances a number of parasite plants are observed 
on the material, and it is necessary to scrape the cheese from time to time, to free it from 
these mycodermic plants, which are reproduced with fresh energy. As these plants require 
ammonia for their development, Blondeau supposes it can only come from the nitrogen 
of its caseine, and that fat is one of the results of the caseine decomposition. 
Gregory, (Annalen der Chem. und. Ph. 61, p. 362,) examined the adipocire of a fat hog 
