OILS. 523 
moment, without revealing its medicinal character, but merely 
describing it as a meat dish which the doctor has ordered. By 
the adoption of this plan a patient may, without knowing it, 
be induced to take Castor Oil with avidity, and to declare 
between the mouthfuls that such Oil (which has been perhaps 
previously suggested, and refused with aversion) is one of those 
disgusting things which he never could, and never will take! 
Carlyle called Castor Oil “the Oil of Sorrow.” 
With regard to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the 
New Testament,—pouring Oil and wine into the wounds of the 
traveller by the wayside,— it has been pointed out that the words 
of the text signify “‘ he bound up his wounds, pouring on, not in, 
‘Oil, and wine.” In other words, as the Good Samaritan 
applied the bandage he kept pouring Oil upon it, to make it 
remain soft, and prevent it from stiffening. while adding wine 
to stimulate, and cleanse the parts. Such (as we know from 
Galen) were the recognized therapeutics of the past; whilst 
more than a century later on a paste combining these two 
liquids was a popular pharmaceutical preparation. Friction 
of old bruises, and painful chronic swellings, with Olive Oil, in 
conjunction with some warming spirit, is a long-established 
domestic remedy. In the peasant speech of Devon, where 
swollen neck-glands are called “ waxing curls,” one may hear it 
said: ‘‘ Aw, poar little blid; ’er idden very well ; ’er waxing curls 
be down, an’ I’ve a bin rubbin’ um back wi Arts’orn an’ Oil.” 
Olive Oil is the best medium for frying, at about 
350° Fahrt» suddenly plunging the substance into the pan of 
boiling oil, and leaving it there for three, or four minutes. 
This process differs entirely from the usual so-called frying, 
in which the fat is regarded merely as a means of preventing 
the substance from adhering to the surface of the shallow pan. 
True frying produces an instantaneous coagulation of the 
albuminous proteids on the surface, so that any escape from 
within of soluble substances is thus hindered, whilst the out- 
side temperature is so high (as with fish, for example) that 
the food is practically cooked throughout its whole thickness 
almost immediately. At high temperatures some inferior fats 
develop fatty acids, which are trying to a feeble digestion. — 
An English citizen was being conducted round the galleries 
of the White House, New York, by an American gentleman, 
to whom he remarked, ‘ What a large number of portraits 
