OILS. 519 
OILS. 
For medicinal effects several oils are used in a culinary form, 
whether animal, or vegetable, fixed, or volatile. Likewise 
certain animal oils can be beneficially rubbed into the skin of 
persons wasted through long illness, or atrophied by defective 
nutrition. Neatsfoot Oil, from the heifer, is admirable for such 
a purpose. Thomson tells in his Seasons about 
* A little, round, fat, oily man of God.” 
Neat are cattle of the bovine genus taken collectively, as oxen, 
bulls, cows, and calves. Shakespeare, in the Winter's Tale, 
says playfully :— 
“ We must be neat ; not neat, but cleanly, Captain ! 
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf 
Are all called neat.” 
And again, in Julius Cesar :— 
“* As proper men as ever trod upon 
Neats’ leather have gone upon my handiwork.” 
Another such animal oil is “ Trotter Oil,” obtained by boiling 
down the feet, or trotters, of sheep, or calves. The closer the 
similarity between the fats, or oils, taken as food, and the fat 
of a person’s body, the more readily is the dietetic fat or oil 
absorbed, and utilized for the bodily wants. Sir Henry Holland 
advocated the practice of anointing the harsh, dry skin of 
dyspeptic patients with warm oils, those of a bland animal sort 
being preferable for the purpose. The yolk of egg, the livers 
of poultry and fish, and the brains of animals, all abound in 
oily matter. Gilbert White tells that oil is extracted from 
Cockchafers in Kent by boiling these creatures, which are 
collected by the labourers with such view. Cod-liver Oil is 
universally known, and valued as a typical fatty aliment for 
consumptive persons, in whom the waste by hectic fever, and 
often by other bodily losses, is excessive. All the vital constitu- 
ents of bile are comprised in Cod-liver Oil; but the essential 
curative action thereof is due to a subtle force residing in its 
inmost centre, the “‘ very principle, and factor of life.” It may 
be better relished if some catsup is mixed with the oil, or some 
Liebig’s Extract of Meat. Iodine, lecithin, and bromine are 
constituents of this oil, together with glycerine, resin, margaric 
acid, therapine, oleic acid, coleine, salts of lime, potash, and 
