The acetate of alumine is an excellent preservative of animal matters, as will be seen by referring to the observation cited at the end of the last chapter; but it is costly, and on this account cannot be employed in amphitheatres.
It was necessary, then, to search for a more economical method; this I have found in the simple sulphate of alumine. This salt, but indifferently known, no one having thought of it before me, is of a simple preparation and moderate price.
A killogram of this salt, costing about twenty cents, dissolved in two quarts of water, is sufficient in winter to preserve a body fresh, by injection, for three months.
In order to preserve a body for a month or six weeks, it is not even necessary to inject the blood-vessels—a glyster of one quart, and the same quantity injected into the œsophagus, suffices for this limited preservation. This process is adopted at Clamart for all the dead bodies destined for dissection. The preservative power of this salt will be easily understood, if its analysis be compared with that of the double sulphate given above.
One hundred parts of simple sulphate of alumine, are composed of alumine 30, of sulphuric acid 70. This salt properly prepared, exempt from iron, commonly contains from thirty-six to forty for 100 of water.
The following is a table of the different densities of this salt, according to the quantity of water in which it is dissolved.
A killogram dissolved in five hundred scruples of water gives a quart of liquid which marks 32° on the areometer of Baumè.
This same quantity in a quart of water
| Marks, | 20° |
| In two quarts, | 17° |
| In four quarts, | 8° |
| In five quarts, | 6° |