380 THE MANUFACTURE OP COD-LIVEK OIL. 



tained, in a large quantity and of an excellent quality, what I had before 

 only been able to produce in very small quantities. 



The reader must pardon me for this digression with reference to the 

 method of preparing the oil. I have done it in order to vindicate my right 

 as being the inventor. And, indeed, I am in possession of written docu- 

 ments to prove, that I am the man who first carried out this method in our 

 fishery districts, and therefore in the country. 



The purifying of rancid and bad smelling oil, by the means hitherto 

 adopted, will rather deteriorate it, and render it unfit for medical use, as 

 the acids, which have not as yet been liberated, are separated under the 

 process of decomposition. 



It has by no means been fully ascertained in what component part of 

 the oil its beneficial effects reside ; some holding that they proceed from 

 iodine, others from phosphorus, and others again from fatty acids, or from 

 its fat. Both Professor Strecker's experiments and my own have shown, 

 that iodine exists only in such a small degree, that it is difficult to assign 

 to it any quantitative distinction. In my opinion, the idea that these 

 two component parts are the effective agents must be relinquished, and the 

 more so, as they have been employed in cases, in which, under similar cir- 

 cumstances, the oil has been used most successfully, without any traces of 

 the same effects being apparent. How far it is to be attributed to the 

 agency of the peculiar fatty acids contained in the oil I do not know, and 

 it must remain an open question. 



I must, therefore, give it as my opinion that cod-liver oil acts in its 

 entirety as a fatty substance, and the reason that vegetable oils cannot be 

 used with equal advantage is owing to the circumstance, that cod-liver 

 oil, as an animal-fat, is easier of digestion, probably owing to its elementary 

 composition ; for when influenced by alkalies, it gives very different decom- 

 posing products than is the case with the fatty vegetable oils. 



If this view then be the correct one — viz., that cod-liver oil acts as fat, 

 the principal object in its manufacture must be to get it as pure, and as 

 similar as possible to that which is found in the liver. 



The liver, as is well known, has a mild fatty flavour, and a smell with 

 scarcely any traces of oil ; and further, the oil which floats on the surface 

 of the water, when fish and liver are boiled in large quantities, has as pure 

 flavoured a taste as the finest Florentine oil ; and, even the oil, which 

 is separated, on boiling the fat summer herring, is totally devoid of an 

 oily flavour. The fishermen skim it off, and use it as butter, or as other 

 fat in their households. From the practical knowledge I have gained about 

 this matter, I may say that the principle of my method is very similar ; 

 and it only remains to institute some experiments with liver on a small 

 scale in order to carry out and confirm my views ; and then to construct 

 suitable apparatus, and thus decide the process of obtaining the oil in a 

 perfectly purified state. The apparatus, in which the manufacture of the 

 oil is performed, is perhaps difficult to describe without illustrated plates ; 



