Hi Adam,
You may not be aware of it, but soap (actually a variety of soaps) was an officinal (medically recommended) nineteenth century medicine in Wood and Bache's "Dispensatory of the United States of America", published in 1865. Drs. Wood and Bache were leading American experts on anything to do with medicines. They devoted almost 4 pages of small font text on the nature, preparation, types of soap used in medicine and their chemical/physical properties/medical properties (Wood, George B. and Franklin Bache, Twelfth Edition, pp. 744-748.) What you may have in mind is "common soap" as opposed to one of the soft soaps. Common soap was the white soap used in the mid-nineteenth century by North Europeans and Americans for washing. It was made with animal oil using barilla (impure sodium carbonate),tallow, and lye. Tallow is defined in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary as "the harder fat of sheep, cattle, etc." In the 1865 Dispensatory, Wood and Bache state that this kind of soap had been recently removed from recommended medical use so a more detailed description of preparation of this kind of soap should be found in the 11th edition or earlier ones. There were numerous ways of making medicinal soaps so the anonymous claim of using animal bones in preparation of soap may have validity.
Allen
>Dear HISTARCH,
>
>My apologies for resending this. I had forgotten to change the
>subject of my previous email, which may cause it to go unnoticed.
>
>I am trying to find any publications on soap making in the
>historic period, particularly anything dealing with faunal
>remains. From my understanding, fats used in soap production
>would have been more likely to use subcutaneous fats like lard.
>I am trying to address an anonymous claim that bones would have
>been boiled for grease to make soap, but I am not familiar with
>such research.
>
>Thanks to Bob Skiles for the incredible reference, and any more
>would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks, Adam Heinrich
>Dear HISTARCH,
>
>My apologies for resending this. I had forgotten to change the
>subject of my previous email, which may cause it to go unnoticed.
>
>I am trying to find any publications on soap making in the
>historic period, particularly anything dealing with faunal
>remains. From my understanding, fats used in soap production
>would have been more likely to use subcutaneous fats like lard.
>I am trying to address an anonymous claim that bones would have
>been boiled for grease to make soap, but I am not familiar with
>such research.
>
>Thanks to Bob Skiles for the incredible reference, and any more
>would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks, Adam Heinrich
-----Original Message-----
>From: adam heinrich
>Sent: Dec 22, 2013 9:41 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Bones and soap
>
>Dear HISTARCH,
>
>My apologies for resending this. I had forgotten to change the
>subject of my previous email, which may cause it to go unnoticed.
>
>I am trying to find any publications on soap making in the
>historic period, particularly anything dealing with faunal
>remains. From my understanding, fats used in soap production
>would have been more likely to use subcutaneous fats like lard.
>I am trying to address an anonymous claim that bones would have
>been boiled for grease to make soap, but I am not familiar with
>such research.
>
>Thanks to Bob Skiles for the incredible reference, and any more
>would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks, Adam Heinrich
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