It is not excusable, indeed, to be ignorant that the chloride of lime, (_chloride of the oxide of calcium_,) mixed with the deuto-chloride of mercury, produces, with the disengagement of chlorine, two new products, first, the chloride of calcium, (_muriate of lime_,) and the deutoxide of mercury, (_red precipitate_,) an insoluble substance, to which no one has ever attributed conservative properties. Upon what principle, further, upon what positive knowledge are we authorized to make so frequent use of the chloride of lime in embalming? No scientific data justifies this practice. Is it because it possesses disinfecting properties? But this is the very reason why it should be rejected, for in what manner does it act upon putrid miasmata? Is it not by decomposing them? No one doubts this, excepting always the embalmers; who are probably also ignorant that it possesses in the highest degree the property of decomposing animal and vegetable matter. I have proved in the course of my researches, that _a fresh corpse, injected with one of the chlorides of the oxide of sodium, calcium, potassium, is in a complete state of dissolution, at the end of forty-eight hours_. These researches, which I have pushed in various directions, have weighed hardest upon the substance which has been extolled as excellent, and as very superior to any thing used by the ancients in embalming: I applied myself to establish, as far as practicable, the precise degree of confidence that the deuto-chloride of mercury merited under these circumstances. It is very true that it preserves animal matter plunged into a solution of it; but to what degree, and under what rules? The following is a brief exposition: 1. Coarse anatomical pieces, (a preparation of the muscles of the arm, for example,) plunged into and maintained in a saturated solution of the deuto-chloride of mercury, and then dried, are protected from corruption, but they become brown, stiff, and so deformed as scarcely to be recognized. 2. The injection of this liquid is not sufficient to arrest the progress of decomposition--this salt not being sufficiently soluble. 3. The simple immersion of a corpse in it hardens the skin, but the muscles and all the viscera are decomposed. 4. The injection of it, followed by immersion, preserves the object well enough for the space of two or three months, but putrid decomposition attacks the thoracic and abdominal viscera, as well as the brain and thick muscles, at the end of this time.