This section is from the book "Essentials Of Materia Medica And Therapeutics", by Alfred Baring Garrod. Also available from Amazon: The Essentials Of Materia Medica And Therapeutics.
Adeps Praeparatus. [Adeps. U. S.] Prepared Lard. The prepared internal fat of the abdomen of Sus scrofa, The Hog. Hog's Lard.
Description. Lard is too familiar to need much description. It is a soft, white, fatty substance, melting at about 100°.
Prop. & Comp. Consistence soft, fuses between 80° and 90°; it consists of a large quantity of oleine (60 per cent.), with some margarine and stearine: these substances, with the exception of margarine, have been before described. Margarine (C108 H104 O12) may be broken up into margaric acid (HO, C94 H23 O3) and glycerine (C6 H8 O6); it is more soluble in cold ether than stearine. Properly prepared lard has no rancic odour, and dissolves entirely in ether. Distilled water in which it has been boiled, when cooled and filtered, gives no precipitate with nitrate of silver, showing the absence of common salt.
Off. Prep. Unguentum Simplex. Simple Ointment. (White wax, two ounces; prepared lard, three ounces; almond oil, three fluid ounces.)
Lard is also used in the preparation of other ointments.
Therapeutics. Lard is emollient, and is sometimes added to poultices to prevent their getting dry and hard.
 
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