384 
On the Edulcoraiion of Fish Oil 
be the principal cause, there is another likewise, which 
is, ustion, or burning the oil, occasioned by the strong 
heat employed for the extracting it from the blubber of 
the larger fish, and which produces a strong empyreu- 
matic scent that is not always to be equally removed by 
the same means as the putrid smell, but remains some 
times very prevalent after that is taken away. 
In order to the perfect edulcoration of oils there are 
consequently two kinds of fcetor or stink to be removed ; 
viz. the putrid, and the empyreumatic : and the same 
means do not always equally avail against both. 
The putrid smell of fish-oil is of two kinds : the rancid, 
which is peculiar to oils ; and the common putrid smell, 
which is the general effect of the putrefaction of animal 
fluids, or of the vascular solids, when commixed with 
aqueous fluids. 
Fish-oil has not only rancidity, or the first kind of pu- 
trid smells peculiar to oils, but also the second or gene- 
ral kinds ; as the oil, for the most part, is commixed with 
the gelatinous humour common to all animals, and some 
kinds with a proportion of the bile likewise ; and those 
humours putrefying combine their putrid scent with the 
rancidity of the oil, and, in cases where great heat has 
been used, with that and the empyreuma also. 
The reason of the presence of the gelatinous fluid in 
fish- oil is this : that the blubber, which consists partly of 
adipose vesicles, and partly of the membrana cellulosa, 
which contains the gelatinous fluid, is, for the most part, 
kept a considerable time before the oil is separated from 
it, either from the want of convenient opportunities to ex- 
tract the oil, or in order to the obtaining a larger propor- 
tion; as the putrid effervescence which then comes on, 
rupturing the vesicles, makes the blubber yield a greater 
quantity of oil than could be extracted before such change 
was produced; and the vesicles of the tela cellulosa, con 
