M. Professor Dumas, treating of the acetate of alumine in the lectures which he gives in the Polytechnic School, was led to refer to the application which I had successfully made of this salt, for the preservation of bodies. He requested me to lend him some preparations to show to the students of the school. I lost no time in sending him several specimens; I added the first body which I had injected with the solution of the simple sulphate at thirty degrees; it was the corpse of a fœtus that had only lived fifteen days. Injected six months ago, and abandoned to the air of my laboratory, this body had lost about one-half of its water of composition; the feet, the hands, the ears, were dried;--the face was covered with _byssus_,[16] but no trace of decomposition evinced an approaching dissolution of the organs. [16] These productions on the surface of dried preparations, not covered with varnish, do not produce, it is true, putrid decomposition, but they change, and tend to destroy them. I have experienced all the inconvenience of this fact in embalming; after numerous trials I have discovered a method of preventing it. On the next lecture, Cazalis asked me in what state the vessels ought to be found in this stage of the preservation. The subject, I remarked, is at your disposal, and you can satisfy yourself. He then opened the chest, placed the syphon in the aorta, and a fatty injection of about three hundred scruples was forced into the arterial system. The injection having cooled, the subject was opened; the intestines were in a remarkable state of preservation, and the injection had penetrated them, as well as the brain, which was found in a healthy state. Finally, the brachial artery, followed in its divisions and subdivisions to the palm of the hand, was seen to be injected. Since this period, I often show this subject to persons who visit my laboratory; it is immersed in the preservative liquor, and I can submit it to the examination of anatomists, for whom facts only are important. Observations of this nature prove that I have given to anatomists the means of preservation which respond loudly to all the wants of the science; and it ought further to be remarked, that my experiments have been conducted under the most unfavourable circumstances. Indeed, for the trial of all the substances which I supposed possessed of preservative properties, I have chosen, as in the preceding case, fœtuses, as subjects the most disposed to fall into putrefaction, as in them animal matter is not completely formed, and they include a considerable quantity of water of composition, much geline, and very little muscular flesh. This method of proceeding has enabled me to dispense with numerous attempts, and to avoid deception. The aspect of fœtuses, and the intimate structure of their tissues vary little from each other; but the difference, very trifling for these subjects, is immense in men of advanced age; the temperament, and idiosyncrasy,