183. Adipocire.
The nature of this substance must always have been known since men have been buried in church-yards, and grave-digging became a regular occupation. "In an hydropical body," says Sir Thomas Brown, "ten years buried in a church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat into the consistence of the hardest Castile soap." (Hydriotaphia, chap. 3.) A specimen, he adds, was in his own possession. But even a process by which this substance may be made, was ascertained by Bacon in his "Experiment Solitary, touching fat diffused in flesh." Sylva Sylvarum. No. 678. "You may turn (almost) all flesh into a fatty substance, if you take flesh, and cut it into pieces, and put the pieces into a glass covered with parchment; and so let the glass stand six or seven hours in boiling water. It may be an experiment of profit for making of fat or grease for many uses: but then it must be of such flesh as is not edible, as horses, dogs, bears, foxes, badgers, &c."
This great author reminds me of Robin Hood:—many men talk of his works. It is odd that he should be so much more talked of than read; because Bacon would be fine food for those philosophers who have a taylor-like propensity for cabbage.