# Human fat

**Axungia hominis*, poor sinner’s fat*

**Known today as.** Fat rendered from the bodies of the executed.

Kind: Animal

## What was it used for?

Rubbed on the skin, or soaked into the bandage of a wound, for pain, inflammation, joint problems, and scars; named in European pharmacopoeias from the sixteenth century.

## What does modern science say?

Sold in Germany from the late nineteenth century as Humanol, a sterile preparation for injection, and used from 1909 on scars and wounds, it fell out of fashion in the 1920s after low cure rates and fat embolisms.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **triglycerides**: oleic, palmitic, linoleic acids

**Mechanism.** Rendered from the executed, it was rubbed on the skin or soaked into the bandage of a wound, on the sympathetic principle that human fat helps bruising. Modern surgery grafts a patient’s own fat to rebuild soft tissue, though much of it is unpredictably resorbed, and that is a different thing.

**Dose.** Injected, as Humanol, it caused fat embolisms.

**Standing.** Believed in European folk medicine to heal until the nineteenth century; a chapter in the history of corpse medicine, which survived well into the eighteenth century and among the poor into Victoria’s time.

## What lore surrounds it?

See [Mummy](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mummy) and the [weapon-salve](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/weapon-salve), its companions among the remedies made of the dead.

## Sources

- Stuart, K. (1999). *Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany*.
- Wikipedia, “Human fat.”
- Wikipedia, “Medical cannibalism.”
- Böckmann, K. A., et al. (2021). Fatty acid composition of adipose tissue at term indicates deficiency of arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acid and excessive linoleic acid supply in preterm infants. *European Journal of Nutrition* 60.
- Sutar, S., et al. (2026). Clinical efficacy of adipose-derived stem cell-enriched lipotransfer versus conventional fat grafting: a systematic review and meta-analysis. *Cureus* 18.
- Sugg, R. (2011). *Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians*. Routledge.

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*Human fat.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/human-fat

Historical description, not medical advice.