colouration of the soft tissues may be produced by prolonged maceration in moving water together with lixivation and disappearence of the soluble matter, and swelling up of the insoluble. That adipocere cannot be formed from the albumen of the muscles, because it is liquafied by putrefactiou and is at once removed by the That adipocere is formed from the water. natural fat of the body, and that it occupies the position vacated by the muscular tissues which have been washed away.?Medical Chronicle, July 1889, p. 318.
ON THE FORMATION OF ADIPOCERE.
Coester, Vierteljahrssch. f. gericht. Med., April, 1889. As au illustration of the formation of adipocere in corpses which have remained a long time under water, the following
is narrated. After the subsidence of the floods caused by the overflowing of the River Oder, the body of a woman was found in a meadow in the following condition : The whole body was stiff, and might be lifted up by one foot without any of the joints showing signs of The cutis was entirely wanting. movement. The colour of the surface was ash-grey, something like common cardboard'. All the tissues included under the designation of the soft parts were hard and stiff, and could be cut with difficulty. In various parts of the body were masses of a whitish substance, resembling lime, which on examination with the fingers was found Case
spring
a fatty, waxy consistence, becoming witli the warmth of the baud. The muscular tissues had entirely disappeared, and no distinction could be made between the fatty and The ordinary cadaverous other soft parts. The weight of the odour was entirely absent.
to possess
sticky
body
much
was so
much below the
that it could
single person.
ordinary standard, so be carried by a
easily
The two ways in which
be formed
are
adipocere
is said to
discussed: by conversion of the
albuminoids of the muscles into adipocere, in addition to the change undergone by the fatty tissues; or by conversion of the fat only. The
conclusions arrived
at
are?That
complete de-
ON THE FORMATION OF ADIPOCERE.
Coester, Vierteljahrssch. f. gericht. Med., April, 1889. As au illustration of the formation of adipocere in corpses which have remained a long time under water, the following
is narrated. After the subsidence of the floods caused by the overflowing of the River Oder, the body of a woman was found in a meadow in the following condition : The whole body was stiff, and might be lifted up by one foot without any of the joints showing signs of The cutis was entirely wanting. movement. The colour of the surface was ash-grey, something like common cardboard'. All the tissues included under the designation of the soft parts were hard and stiff, and could be cut with difficulty. In various parts of the body were masses of a whitish substance, resembling lime, which on examination with the fingers was found Case
spring
a fatty, waxy consistence, becoming witli the warmth of the baud. The muscular tissues had entirely disappeared, and no distinction could be made between the fatty and The ordinary cadaverous other soft parts. The weight of the odour was entirely absent.
to possess
sticky
body
much
was so
much below the
that it could
single person.
ordinary standard, so be carried by a
easily
The two ways in which
be formed
are
adipocere
is said to
discussed: by conversion of the
albuminoids of the muscles into adipocere, in addition to the change undergone by the fatty tissues; or by conversion of the fat only. The
conclusions arrived
at
are?That
complete de-
