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Among the anatomical and pathological specimens exhibited are skulls corroded by syphilis; spines twisted by rickets; skeletons deformed by corsets; microcephalic fetuses; a two-headed baby; a bound foot from China; an ovarian cyst the size of a Jack Russell terrier; Grover Cleveland’s jaw tumor; the liver that joined the original “Siamese twins,” Cheng and Eng Bunker; and the pickled corpse of the Soap Lady, whose fatty tissues decomposed into a congealed asphalt-colored substance called adipocere.

The fat had reacted with moisture to create a waxy substance called adipocere, which can protect a body from decay.

“You have to not fall, try not to step on the pigs, try not to step in the adipocere”—aka corpse wax, it results from decomposition of fats—“which was everywhere, this muck and soup and slime, and bend down and get into that internal microbial community with spiders and larva and all kinds of nasty flies everywhere.”

But the glass plate on the front of the casket had broken, and the body inside was badly degraded. Adipocere, a grayish, waxy substance that forms from the decomposition of body tissue, pooled beneath the bones.

Tests of the adipocere revealed traces of mercury, arsenic and strychnine — all of which are deadly.