ON COD-LIVER OIL. 
137 
ceutical Journal; the more so, as no account of De Jongh's 
analysis of this oil has yet appeared in this Journal. 
It may be well to remind my readers, that while some 
of the fish-oils* of commerce are obtained exclusively from 
the liver, others are procured from the adipose tissue diffused 
through the body of the animal generally. In the former, 
therefore, we are prepared to find bile constituents which 
are not obtainable from the latter. 
In fishes, properly so-called, the distribution of oil in the 
body of the animal is not uniform. In the Gadidss or Cod- 
tribe, (common cod, dorse, coal-fish, pollack, burbot, ling, 
torsk, &c.,) in the Squalidae, or Sharks, and in some other 
fishes, almost the whole adipose tissue of the animal is con- 
centrated iii the form of oil contained in the liver.t On 
the other hand, in the salmon, herring, sprat and wolf-fish, 
the oil is more diffused through the body of the animal, and 
the liver is, comparatively speaking, devoid of it. 
The oils obtained from the livers of the different species 
composing the tribe Gadidas, appear to be very similar in 
their physical and chemical qualities, and there is good rea- 
son for believing that they agree in their medicinal proper- 
ties. To all of them the term oleum jecoris aselli,\ oleum 
* I use the terra fish-oils in its popular and commercial acceptation, 
and include under it not only the oils obtained from fishes, properly 
so-called, but also those procured from other aquatic animals, as the 
cetacea and seals. 
t Professor Owen, in his Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and 
Physiology of the Vertebrate Animals (Part 1, Fishes, p. 242, 1846,) ob- 
serves, that " the myriads of dog-fish captured and commonly rejected 
on our coasts, show that the fishermen have not yet taken full advan- 
tage of this anatomical fact, which exposes to them an abundant 
source of a pure and valuable oil.' 7 
1 Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. ix. cap. 28) states that there were two kinds 
of fishes called aselli, one smaller, termed caMaria, the other found in 
deep water and denominated bacchi ; the latter were preferred to the 
12* 
