SUET is a variety of the fatty or adipose tissue of animals, accu mulated in considerable quantity about the kidneys and the omentum, or caul, of several of the domestic quadrupeds. There are several kinds of it, according to the species of animal from which it is procured, such as that of the hart, the goat, the ox, and the sheep (ovis aries).
This last, which is whiter than beef-suet is officinal. It belongs to the class of saponifiable fats. In the recent state it is white, easily broken, being solid at the ordinary temperature of the air, subdiaphanous, scarcely possessed of odour, or only of a slight peculiar one, due to the hircine, which in the process of saponification evolves a volatile strong smelling acid (hircinic acid of Chevreul), but possessing a very disagreeable one when petrifying. It readily spoils on exposure to the air, becoming rancid and yellow, but may be restored again to white ness by chloride of lime or chloride of magnesia. For this purpose, for each hundred parts of suet from two to four parts of chloride of lime are to be dissolved in from four to eight times its weight of water, and to be mixed warm, and as much dilute sulphuric acid is to be added as is necessary to decompose the chloride.
Suet consists of about three-fourths of stearine, with some elaine, and a little hircin and margarin ; the preponderance of stearin renders it the most solid of animal fats, a circumstauce which con tributes to render it more indigestible than other fats. It liquefies with a gentle heat, and the prepared suet of the Pharmacopwia is obtained by melting it over a slow fire, and straining it, to separate the membranous portion. It is used as an ingredient in cerates, plasters, and ointments.
After being melted, it is little prone to spoiling, and by pouring it over various articles, such as potted char, minced collops, and mush rooms, from which it thoroughly excludes the air, it assists greatly in preserving them.
It has been employed also by M. Ludensdorff for preserving the fleshy fungi, of mushrooms, for botanical museums, by boiling them in it (which thus filled their pores and cells, and penetrated the very substance), and then covering them with a coat of varnish. It does not however always succeed in preserving the colour and form. (See Klotsch, in Hooker's Botanical Miscellany,' u., p. 159.)