OF TIIE OULACHAN. 
587 
whites for culinary purposes, and the Indians use it in all their meals, much 
after the same way as we do butter, using it also as a sauce to their dried salmon. 
So fond are they of it, and so essential to their health is it (as I shall presently 
refer to), that the Hydahs and other tribes, as I have already said, come over to 
purchase it eagerly, and the Hydahs, Stekins, Tsimpsheaus, and other northern 
tribes who winter in Victoria and Puget Sound, will come on board the Met- 
lakathlah mission schooner to purchase it. They complain of the price, but still 
cannot do without it. An old Tsimpshean once said to me, “ I can buy beef 
and bread cheaper, but my heart never feels good until I have got this grease. 
There are just two sweet things in food ,—rum and oulachan oil!” However 
much we may be inclined, from a civilized stand-point of view, to doubt the 
soundness of this summation of a lifetime’s experience, there is no doubt that this 
oil, both in an edible and medicinal light, is of the utmost value. It is the latter 
property which the readers of the present article will be most interested in, and 
which I desire most earnestly to press upon their attention. Its effects on 
pthisical patients is most wonderful, and, from the moist climate of the northern 
portions of the Pacific coast, the natives are very subject to pthisis, haemoptysis, 
and other forms of pulmonary disease. As it is, many die annually of these 
complaints, and I believe that I only speak the opinion of all who know these 
people or who have thought over the subject, that were it not for this oulachan 
oil, these northern tribes, once so powerful, and still so courageous, intelligent, 
and physically fine, would be decimated, and already enfeebled in constitution 
through vices learnt from the whites, their extermination would soon be nn fait 
accompli. It relieves violent coughs in a most remarkable manner, and equally 
conduces to the accumulation of flesh. In a word, it has ail the properties of cod- 
liver and other fish oils in an intensified degree, without their nauseous taste,— 
a taste which is found even in the best and most carefully prepared oils, and 
prohibits many availing themselves of their valuable qualities. I have known 
delicate ladies who would have vomited at the smell of the ordinary cod-liver 
oil, put the bottle of oulachan oil (slightly heated in order to liquefy it) to their 
mouths and drink it without the smallest nausea! If the oil thus rudely prepared 
by the natives be so little unpalatable, I doubt not but that if it underwent the 
usual refining processes of the chemist, that it might be produced perfectly 
tasteless. The old fur traders on the coast everywhere use it in pulmonary dis¬ 
eases, and even send supplies of it into the interior for the use of friends residing 
there. It is looked upon almost as a specific, and the few boxes which the 
Hudson Bay Company’s trading vessel brings down on her annual spring 
voyage (not as an article of commerce, but for the accommodation of friends) 
are generally bespoke long before. The medical officers of the company have 
long preferred prescribing it to cod-liver oil, both in their own families and in 
general practice. One of these gentlemen, whose great intelligence and long 
experience entitles his opinion to every respect,* entertains very similar views 
to those I have advocated, and I have moreover heard him attribute the health 
and even the existence of the Indians during their exposed life in a hyperpluviose 
climate like that of Fort Simpson and north to Sitka, to the use of oulachan oil. 
In the course of my journeys into die interior of Oregon and elsewhere, I have 
had occasion to recommend and procure some for friends troubled with pthisical 
complaints, and in every instance I have heard its merits extolled in the highest 
degree. 
7. The object of this paper has been to draw the attention of pharmaceutists 
to this oil, with a view to its being tried in a medicinal and commercial way. 
* I believe that I am at liberty to mention bis name,—The Honourable John Sebastian 
Helmecken, Chief Trader and Surgeon H.B.C., Member of the Legislative Council of British 
Columbia, and formerly Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of "S ancouver Island. 
