Am.  Jotir.  Pharm.  > 
Aug.  1, 1872.  ) 
Dugong  Oil, 
371 
we  take  this  opportunity  of  laying  before  our  readers  such  informa- 
tion as  we  have  been  able  to  obtain. 
Near  the  case  in  question  is  a  specimen  of  a  "  Dugong  sucking 
calf,"  lent,  as  a  card  attached  to  it  informs  us,  by  Professor  Flower, 
of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  Lincoln's  Inn  Field.  This  "calf,'" 
which  is  between  four  and  five  feet  long,  has  a  very  curious  head,  and 
flippers  instead  of  fins. 
In  the  case  are  the  skull  and  some  of  the  rib  bones  of  a  full-grown 
dugong  cow,  a  piece  of  the  dried  skin,  nearly  an  inch  in  thickness, 
several  teeth  and  tusks,  a  piece  of  dried  meat,  stated  to  be  a  piece  of 
a  calf,  and  which  looks  and,  we  were  assured,  tastes  precisely  like 
bacon,  and  a  few  bottles  of  a  white  substance  not  unlike  lard  or  drip- 
ping, labelled  "Dugong  Oil,"  which  is  announced  as  "the  great 
Queensland  remedy  for  consumption.  It  appears  to  have  been  first 
prescribed  for  that  disease  by  Dr.  Hobbs,  of  Brisbane,  who  was  led 
to  use  it  in  his  practice  through  observing  the  wonderful  effects  the 
mere  eating  of  the  flesh  of  the  animal  had  on  the  aboriginals  when 
suffering  from  lung  diseases.  It  is  claimed  for  this  oil  that  it  is  not 
only  quite  equal  to  cod-liver  oil  in  the  treatment  of  affections  of  the 
lungs,  but  that  it  is  also  a  remedy  for  diseases  of  the  stomach  and 
bowels  and  general  debility,  indigestion  and  biliousness,  as  well  as 
chronic  coughs  and  wasting  in  children.  But  its  chief  peculiarity  is 
reported  to  be  that,  far  from  partaking  of  the  nauseousness  of  cod- 
liver  oil,  it  is  actually  pleasant  to  eat  as  an  article  of  food,  and  can 
thus  be  taken  by  people  of  a  delicate  appetite  when  the  stomach  en- 
tirely revolts  from  cod-liver  oil. 
At  a  dinner  given  by  Mr.  Danetree,  the  Agent  General  of  Queens- 
land, in  the  Annexe,  on  the  10th  inst.,  dugong  oil  bore  a  very  promi- 
nent part  in  the  menu.  Both  pastry  and  biscuits  were  introduced,  in 
which  the  oil  took  the  place  of  butter  or  lard,  and  we  are  informed 
that  the  general  opinion  was  that  it  was  in  every  way  a  success.  The 
London  correspondent  of  the  Newcastle  Daily  Express,  in  writing  to 
that  journal  says,  "  Lighter  or  more  delicious  pastry  than  that  in 
which  this  oil  had  taken  the  place  of  lard,  I  never  tasted.  The  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  the  biscuits,  which  were  everything  that  bis- 
cuits ought  to  be." 
The  fish,  or  more  properly  speaking,  the  animal,  from  which  this 
oil  is  procured,  is  a  herbivorous  cetacean,  and  would  probably  be 
ranked  by  naturalists  midway  between  the  whale  and  the  seal.    It  is 
