REMARKS ON COD LIVER OIL. 
101 
the New England shore of the Atlantic, to which latter product, 
however, the name is usually applied. 
Before describing the several methods adopted in the extrac- 
tion of the shore oil, it will be well to explain the condition in 
which the oil exists in the livers. Healthy cod livers are plump, 
have a uniform, pale fawn color, and are exceedingly tender. 
When unhealthy, they are less plump, smaller and more or less 
discolored. The latter are generally derived from fish that fre- 
quent unfavorable localities, or where their natural enemies in- 
terfere with their quiet feeding. The oil exists in the tissues of 
the livers as an albuminous emulsion consisting of an aqueous 
fluid intimately intermixed with the oil. When this is pressed 
out and allowed to stand, the oil gradually separates and rises 
to the surface, whilst an opalescent fluid collects beneath. The 
recent oil, when not injured in the process of preparation, has a 
fresh-fishy odor, which it gradually loses, and afterwards, by age 
and exposure, acquires the odor and taste of lamp oil. 
The ordinary process of making shore oil is to throw eight or 
ten buckets full of cod livers into a suitable boiler, add three or 
four gallons of water and heat them till the tissues are broken up 
and the whole becomes a kind of magma. A large cask or tub 
is then arranged with a straining cloth across its open head, and 
the contents of the boiler poured upon it. The oily and watery 
portions pass through, leaving the membranous parts on the 
strainer. By standing, the oil separates, is drawn off, and after 
another straining is barrelled for the market. 
The oil of cod livers is made in this way, in quantities varying 
from a few gallons, in the fisherman's cottage, to hundreds of 
barrels in the various fishing establishments, which in one form 
or another, are located along the coast from Cape Cod to Nova. 
Scotia, but most largely perhaps, in the neighborhood of Glou- 
cester, Massachusetts. The New England oil has less color than 
the bank (shore) oil, but it is less rich in the peculiar principles 
of the oil, a fact attributable perhaps to the less perfect develop- 
ment of the fish of our own fishing grounds ; a supposition cor- 
roborated by the fact that the yield of oil by the livers varies 
from 10 to 30 or 40 per cent, on the latter stations, whilst on 
the Banks from 30 to 60 per cent, is the more usual product. 
Since the extensive employment of cod liver oil in medicine^ 
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