Part 2

(b) Two from human subjects, which I obtained myself from a grave yard.

(c) From a fossil ox, presented by Prof. Leidy.

(a) SHEEP ADIPOCIRE.

Specimens of this adipocire were presented to the Academy of Natural Sciences, by my uncle, who found them at his country seat, opposite Valley Forge, buried in moist ground, near a drain which led water from a spring-house. About ten years previously, the shepherd in charge of a flock of sheep indulged in a drunken spree, and in the meanwhile some fifteen of the sheep in his care died from neglect, and were buried in the above mentioned spot. My uncle, who was present at the exhumation of the sheep, stated that in some of the remains, the exterior forms of the muscles were very distinct. The two specimens I obtained were in lumps, amorphous under the microscope, floating on water; of greasy feel, and rank mutton smell, mingled with a peculiar disagreeable fundamental smell, that I have observed in all my specimens of adipocire, including the fossil one. Heated in a capsule with water, a transparent fat floats melted on the surface; heated alone in a platinum crucible, it melts and burns with a smoky flame, leaving a slight residue, which effervesces with hydrochloric acid, and contains beside sand and a little iron, principally lime. Under the microscope with moderate powers, it is white, fatty, and granular, disappearing with Canada balsam; with higher powers it is amorphous: melted on the glass slide covered with thin glass, is crystalline on cooling, in groups of plumose crystals, which give a beautiful play of colours with polarized light; a drop of its weak alcoholic solution evaporated spontaneously on glass gave the same appearance of crystallization. Water added to this solution precipitated it in the form of a pure white amorphous powder: distilled per se, leaves a slight carbonaceous residue, and gives a volatile fat, yellowish, and cryst, on cooling. This volatile fat is soluble in hot alcohol, and precipitates partly on cooling. The weight of material was seventy grammes; it was melted in the water bath, and filtered through paper in a hot funnel; the filtered solidified fat was of a light coffee colour, and weighed fifty-four grammes; in a capillary tube, is soft at 54°, fluid at 62°; on cooling becomes opaque at 50°. When pressed in paper, the latter is greased by oleic acid; it contains no ammonia, nor any nitrogen by the potassium test; the residue on the filter (together with the filter) was boiled with alcohol, filtered hot on a weighed filter, and washed with alcohol. This alcoholic solution deposited twelve grammes of fatty acid, by spontaneous evaporation, during the summer. The crystals at first deposited were white and warty; a portion of the alcoholic solution on a glass slide, exhibited with the microscope, white, curved dendritic forms, arranged stellate; in the capillary tube, they begin to melt at 53°, are fluid at 62°, and on cooling begin to cloud at 58°, and are opaque at 50°. The residue on the filter weighed about four grammes, and viewed under the microscope, consisted of membranous matter, wool, dirt, and the white element of cellular tissue; it gave ammonia with potassa solution, and nitrogen by Laissaigne’s test, together with a strong smell of phosphuretted hydrogen when the water was added in the latter test. This residue burned, gave thirty per cent. of ash. The following is the per centage result for the adipocire:—

Solid fatty acids, a little oleic acid, and coally matter, 94.2 Membranous matter and cellular tissue, 2.3 Ash and dirt, 3.5 ————— 100.0

The portion of fatty acid which passed through the filter by melting, contained 0.73 per cent. of a dark-coloured ash, principally lime, with iron, and traces of phosphoric and sulphuric acids, potash and soda. The potash and soda were detected by Dr. Lawrence Smith’s beautiful method by polarized light, which I have frequently used with success. In this instance, the quantity of material was so small, that neither the potash nor soda could be detected by the usual method.

Sixty grammes of the fatty acids were then saponified with potash lye, according to Chevreul’s proportions, during which operation neither ammonia nor cholesterine could be detected. The soap was decomposed by tartaric acid, and washed several times by melting with water; it dissolved thus in alcohol with reddish brown colour, and after filtering hot, was suffered to deposit the greater part of its fat on cooling. The crystals thus deposited were nacreous scales, and of lustre like the feathers of moth wings; when melted, they weighed 26 grammes, and had a goat-like smell; by further standing, the alcohol deposited four grammes of very translucent crystals, with traces of stellar groupings. A third crop of crystals by spontaneous evaporation was obtained, which was small in quantity, weighing 0.6 grammes, and, when melted, cooled with a flat, waxy, surface, with traces of stellar aggregations. The mother alcohol of this last crystallization, was treated with an alcoholic solution of acetate of lead. The lead salts, treated in the usual manner by ether, yielded a few drops of very highly coloured oleic acid. From the insoluble lead salts, the fat was separated.

The alcoholic solution from which the oleate and other lead salts were precipitated by acetate of lead, was evaporated to dryness, and treated by ether, when another portion of oleic acid was obtained. It results from this that the quantity of oleic acid in the adipocire is small. The greater portion of the lead salt was insoluble in ether and alcohol, its fat was separated and added to the first crop of crystals which fell from the alcoholic solution of the fat from saponification. To ascertain whether any glycerine was in combination with the fatty acids in the adipocire, the aqueous solution from which the crop was precipitated by tartaric acid during the purification of the fat, was heated, filtered from small fat globules, and after removing the tartar deposit, subjected to distillation. The acid residue of the retort was neutralized by carb. potash, and after evaporating on the water bath was exhausted with absolute alcohol, which proved the absence of glycerine, as it gave on evaporating nothing but a small residue of colouring matter, which was yellow, and of a bitter taste.

The distillate in this experiment had a goat-like smell, and it was doubtful whether it reacted acid to litmus paper. Baryta water was added to alkaline reaction, for which but a small quantity was needed, and the solution evaporated. There was but little residue, which, on the addition of a drop of hydrochloric acid and water, emitted a rancid smell, but no oil globule appeared; the volatile fatty acids may, therefore, be considered to be present in the adipocire only in faint traces.

The following melting points were obtained:--The first crop of crystals from the alcoholic solution of the fat after saponification, which, when melted, cooled with a stellated surface, tried three times by dipping the thermometer bulb in the melted solution, and noting the temperature when it became opaque, gave 55° for the solidifying point. In a capillary tube, begins to melt at 57°, fluid at 59°, on cooling, opaque at 55°; this portion was taken from the capsule on melting the fat, before the whole mass was melted: another portion taken when all was fluid, and after stirring, gave the same results.

The crystalline appearance of the second crop of crystals from the alcoholic solution after saponification, when melted and suffered to cool in a capsule, is similar to that of the first crop; in the capillary tube, begins to melt at 53°, fluid at 54°-55°, on cooling, crystals form in the tube at 51°, and is opaque at 50°. The melting point of the third crop of crystals was 50.5°. In ascertaining the melting points of the different fats described in this paper, I tried the various modes in use, and settled at first upon the following:--A beaker of distilled water (which must be boiled just before using, to prevent air globules settling upon the capillary tubes, which would falsify the result) is placed upon wire gauze upon a retort stand in front of a window, the thermometer hangs, by a string, in this water from another stand, and the lamp must be moveable from under the beaker glass. A piece of string is tied so loosely around the top of the (cylindrical) mercury reservoir of the thermometer, that the different capillary tubes may be readily slipped in and out on raising the thermometer from the water; the heat from the lamp must be such that the temperature of the water rises gradually; the capillary tubes are so placed that they lie closely to the mercury of the thermometer, and when the temperature approaches the melting point, the water is stirred with the thermometer to equalize the heat, the lamp is then removed, and the point of solidification observed in the usual way. I doubt very much the use of noting the point of solidification, as it is influenced so much by extraneous circumstances. The cooling of water and certain salts below their solidifying points, is well known, and the same must take place in these instances. Heintz has noticed how the thermometer rose ten degrees in determining the solidifying point of melted human fat. In one of my experiments, the fat in the tube was separated by minute air globules into three or four columns, quite close together; in observing the fusing point, they all melted at the same instant; but in solidifying, one would be quite clear while those on either side had become opaque, no matter how much the tube was stirred or vibrated by striking the beaker glass. After having observed this in several instances, I abandoned taking the points of solidification, and modified the process for the fusing point, by keeping the water as near that point as possible, and repeatedly lifting the thermometer and attached capillary tube out of the water for a few seconds, that the fat might solidify, and noting the fusing point as that at which it at once becomes liquid; this point is reached twice; first, when the water is being heated, and secondly, as it is cooling: I have found by repetition of the same experiment, that the degree thus obtained, is constant from the first, and I think gives the most accurate results. The mode of using capillary tubes for the fusing points, is convenient, as, at the close of the experiment, they can be sealed at the open end, and placed on a card with descriptions, for future reference. I weighed the quantity of fat in one instance, and found that half a milligramme was much more than enough to obtain the melting point with the capillary tube.

(b) HUMAN ADIPOCIRE.

Towards the close of the year 1853, I visited a grave yard in Philadelphia, the remains of which were being removed, and from which, through the kindness of the superintendent, I obtained specimens of adipocire and valuable information. The surface of the burial ground was depressed about four or six feet below that of the neighbouring streets, and was of a very moist nature. Many of the bodies were converted more or less into adipocire, and of these, all had been large persons. There was none among the remains of children. I obtained specimens from two persons.

No. 1, was from a large man, which had been buried from ten to fifteen years; the ground was very moist, and the coffin rotten; the grave was seven feet deep. The adipocire was from the middle of the coffin, and was in irregular lumps.

No. 2, was from a very large man; buried five or six years; the ground moist, though not so much so as number one; the grave five feet deep. The ground around the coffin was of a bloody colour, and all of the body was decayed, except the lower portion. The shape of the rump was plain, and the legs separate; the fat was at the bottom of the coffin, and the bones (femur, tibia) were lying along it. The adipocire contained an impression of the bone, was spongy and dark-coloured on the inside; and on the outside it was smooth, white, and presented impressions of the grave clothes, and here and there appearances as if of the hair follicles and sebaceous glands, but which lost this appearance when viewed with the microscope. There was no hair on this specimen. The pieces of adipocire of this specimen were large, at the thickest part being about three inches in thickness; they presented the shape of different parts of the leg, though flattened; tough fibrous bands, like aponeuroses, were seen in some parts traversing the mass of fatty matter.

The appearance of these two specimens with the microscope, was very similar to each other and to the sheep adipocire. Powder scraped from them, with a fine needle, gave no appearance of fat globules, but irregular masses, mingled with membranous matter; a portion sliced off with a sharp knife, presented by reflected light, brilliant, white, irregular fatty fragments, but no traces of globules. When alcohol was added with heat, the fat disappeared, leaving membranous matter, and fibres not-anastomosing (the white element of cellular tissue.) The addition of acetic acid causes the fibres to disappear, and without showing nuclei.

Portions of number one presented an appearance as if of the hair follicles, and there were mingled with it cylindrical hairs, of an inch and a half in length, brownish in colour, and quite fine. From these hairs, and from its position in the coffin, adipocire number one probably came from the abdomen. The fat from this portion gave the same appearance under the microscope, as specimen number two. The alcoholic solution of the fat evaporated on the microscope slide, gave the appearance of stellated dendritic crystals, with curved branches, resembling the so called margaric acid under the same circumstances.

The whole mass of fat in the two specimens, seems to be entangled in a web of disintegrated membrane, and fibrous tissue. I have never been able to detect any traces of muscular fibre under the microscope; and Dr. Leidy, who was kind enough to examine specimens with the microscope, communicated to me the same results. The smell of the two specimens was peculiar; what might be called an adipocire smell; for I have observed it in all specimens of adipocire that I have examined. This smell is indescribable, the nearest approach to it being that of fæces, but it is much more disagreeable.

The following melting points were observed from the original adipocire, melted per se in watch glasses, and the fat taken up in capillary tubes. In these specimens, (a) was taken from parts with little, and (b) from parts with much cellular tissue:

{ { fuses at 56° { (a) { { { solidifies 50° No. 1. { { { fuses 50° { (b) { { { solidifies 43°-44°

{ { fuses 55° { (a) { { { solidifies 50° No. 2. { { { fuses 55° { (b) { { { solidifies 50°

They commenced to melt a little below and to solidify a little above these points, which were taken for perfect fluidity or opacity. Generally in solidifying, the crystallization commenced at one point, and spread gradually through the capillary tube.

The density varied with different portions of one and two, from below 0.7487 to 1.0, and was ascertained, by immersing specimens (freed from external air globules) in ether of the above density, alcohol of density 0.8365, and distilled water. The ash, no doubt, varied also; but the following determinations were made with the whitest portions of one and two: viz.: those of the density of ether. No. 1, contained 0.573 per cent. of ash, (1.135 gave 0.0065) which effervesced with acid, and contained principally, lime, with traces of chlorine, sulphuric and phosphoric acid, also iron, potassa soda, and (doubtful) magnesia. The melting point of this portion was 52°-53°. No. 2, gave 0.18 per cent. of ash, (1.109 gave 0.002) which contained the same substances as number one. The melting point of this fat was 53°-55°.

The two specimens of adipocire were melted with about one and a half times their weight of ordinary alcohol, filtered hot, washed a couple of times with hot alcohol, and pressed, the residue being weighed. This gives an approximate per centage of the membranous and fibrous matter, which is rather too low, owing to a little fat remaining in the residue and filter. The specimens of adipocire were picked as far as practicable from dark pieces.

No. 1, 360 grammes, gave nine of residue, or a per centage of

Fat colouring matter and water, 97.8 Organic tissue, 2.2 ————— 100.0

No. 2, 997 grammes adipocire, gave twenty-seven residue, or per cent.

Fat colouring matter and water, 97.3 Organic tissue, 2.7 ————— 100.0