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Oils

For medicinal effects several oils are used in a culinary form, whether animal, or vegetable, fixed, or volatile. Likewise certain animal oils can be beneficially rubbed into the skin of persons wasted through long illness, or atrophied by defective nutrition. Neatsfoot Oil, from the heifer, is admirable for such a purpose. Thomson tells in his Seasons about "A little, round, fat, oily man of God."

Neat are cattle of the bovine genus taken collectively, as oxen, bulls, cows, and calves. Shakespeare, in the Winter's Tale, says playfully :- "We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, Captain!

And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf Are all called neat."

And again, in Julius Cæsar :- "As proper men as ever trod upon Neats' leather have gone upon my handiwork." are Another such animal oil is "Trotter Oil," obtained by boiling down the feet, or trotters, of sheep, or calves. The closer the similarity between the fats, or oils, taken as food, and the fat of a person's body, the more readily is the dietetic fat or oil absorbed, and utilized for the bodily wants. Sir Henry Holland advocated the practice of anointing the harsh, dry skin of dyspeptic patients with warm oils, those of a bland animal sort being preferable for the purpose. The yolk of egg, the livers of poultry and fish, and the brains of animals, all abound in oily matter. Gilbert White tells that oil is extracted from Cockchafers in Kent by boiling these creatures, which collected by the labourers with such view. Cod-liver Oil is universally known, and valued as a typical fatty aliment for consumptive persons, in whom the waste by hectic fever, and often by other bodily losses, is excessive. All the vital constituents of bile are comprised in Cod-liver Oil; but the essential curative action thereof is due to a subtle force residing in its inmost centre, the very principle, and factor of life." It may be better relished if some catsup is mixed with the oil, or some Liebig's Extract of Meat. Iodine, lecithin, and bromine are constituents of this oil, together with glycerine, resin, margaric acid, therapine, oleic acid, coleine, salts of lime, potash, and 66 sodium. It is of great service as a food likewise in scrofulous affections of children, and for banishing all strumous diseases of the skin. Only "medicine oil," as it is termed in Norway, should be used, which is extracted reliably from the fresh livers which are pressed without stewing; it pertinaciously retains a fishy flavour, and (together with some other fish oils) embodies a considerable amount of cholesterin, which is a particular alcohol concerned in bile-making, (and to be perhaps therefore suggested curatively for restoring glycogen-producing energies to the liver in diabetes). This occurs also in the fat of certain land animals.

An agreeable, and at the same time beneficial, form of fish oil, as a food, is embodied in the contents of the Sardine box now in such general use. Genuine Sardines from the Mediterranean, as imported from Spain, Portugal, and France, are often small pilchards (Clupea pilchardus). The Californian Sardine is Clupea sagax. These delicate fish must be as fresh as possible when first handled; they are beheaded, and gutted, and allowed to remain on wooden slabs overnight after being slightly salted; next day they are salted again, and allowed to dry; they are then cooked in olive oil, and put into wire baskets to drip. The cooking is a nice process; if it is overdone the scales come off; five, or six minutes suffice for the cooking. When they have become cold the fish are placed on tables to be arranged in boxes amid oil dipped from the barrels; this oil is worth more than the fish, therefore they are packed as close as possible; the boxes are then soldered down, and they are cooked a second time by steam. Small Sardines are the most prized. Occasionally a red coloration of the Sardines preserved in oil may be discovered, this being due, it is said, to a chromogenic bacillus which is then found in large numbers on these Sardines before preservation: it is not at all harmful. Long ago, in the Treatise of Gonzalo Oviedo (1535), occurred the record : "When the sayd increasyng of the sea commeth, there commeth also therewith such a multitude of the smaule fyshes cauled Sardynes that no man wolde beleve it that hath not seene it." The preserved Sardine is said to have been brought into fashion by Henry the Fourth ; this delicate fish has been termed the "Manna of the sea." If properly prepared, and not with too much salt, the longer the tin of Sardines is kept unopened the more mellow do the fish become. Without doubt a good many sprats are put up in tins with oil as Sardines. The abundance of oil, together with incorporated fishproducts, make Sardines especially suitable for consumptive patients, also for diabetic sufferers, and for other wasting illnesses, provided the digestive powers do not rebel. The small fish are nicest for eating, and are appreciated best by delicate appetites; thus "the lawyer may find a feast in a box of Sardines, with some biscuits, while the field labourer would look with contempt on such food, and would eagerly turn therefrom to fat pork, and cabbage." "Sardines can supply to the brain-worker the material he needs; likewise the pork and cabbage to the labourer, the heat and energy which he expends." Mr. Dunn, of Mevagissey, in Cornwall, first proposed the preparation of Sardines in this country, but for a long time they were not very popular. Only sixty years ago, a grocer in Brighton had a small quantity on hand for three years, without being able to find a purchaser for them. It was ordered in the first London Pharmacopæia, 1618, "for use among the poor," that oil of Swallows (Oleum Hirundinum) should be employed externally for the cure of rheumatism. This oil was to be made by boiling down young Swallows in oil, together with certain herbs, wine, and May butter. It was ordained with the hope that the stiffened and distorted joints of sufferers would be thus made as lithesome as those of the Swallow or Swift.

Of vegetable Oils, that supplied by the Olive is a capital substitute when butter disagrees; it is slightly laxative, and being mixed in a salad it obviates flatulency. Castor Oil is a favourite adjunct to the Egyptian salads; this was relished taken with other foods in the times of the Pharaohs. The oleic acid of Olive Oil is a powerful solvent of the fæces if injected into the lower bowel. Dr. E. Moraweck, of Austria, when asked by an English physician, on behalf of a patient suffering from gallstones, what remedy he chiefly used for this trouble, advised Olive Oil before all other medicaments. Accordingly a full dose thereof was administered, and two days later a handful of gall-stones was passed. Genuine Olive Oil is expressed from the pulp of the common Olive, being, when fresh and good, an inodorous, insipid, pale yellow, or greenish-yellow, viscous liquid, unctuous to the feel, inflammable, not capable of combining with water, and nearly insoluble in alcohol; it is the lightest of all the fixed oils. Virgin oil runs spontaneously from the Olive pulp, and is superior to the expressed oil, which is more or less turbid, and coloured, having to be stored for a time so as to deposit its impurities, and become clear. Nowadays most of the so-called Olive Oil is really Cotton-seed Oil purified. For Olive Oil a proper mild temperature is essential to keep it good. If frozen in the flask during winter, it must not on any consideration be placed near the fire, or in a heated room, because a forced temperature will turn any such oil rank; it should be put for thawing into warm, not hot, water, after first drawing the cork. In cases of ulcerated stomach, or contraction of its further outlet (the pylorus), a wineglassful of Olive Oil taken before meals will prevent the severe pain which otherwise follows on eating; and with most patients the accompanying dilatation of the stomach disappears completely. From eight to nine ounces should be thus taken in all every day. In two instances this plan of treatment, when tried as an absolutely last resource before operation, yet proved successful; and the patients, who had become reduced to a shadow, began forthwith to regain flesh, insomuch that within two months they were almost cured. Among young men training for athletic contests, rowing, etc., the unusual stimulation of the sweat ducts by increased active exercise sometimes induces boils, when the best preventive is to anoint the skin with a little sweet (Olive) Oil after the morning bath. This is, moreover, a capital resolvent. Both Olive Oil, and Cocoa butter, are as capable for affording nourishment as are the fats of meat, and milk. Cocoa butter contains less water than true butter, and will keep for fifteen or twenty days without showing any acid reaction: therefore it is specially useful for making pastry. The same has been found experimentally an admirable antiseptic against infection by microbes, insomuch that the several Boards of Health sanction its use. Formerly an old custom obtained to dip cutting surgical instruments into oil before incising the flesh. If occasion arises when a dose of Castor Oil seems to be incontestably needed, and more appropriate than aught else for the purpose in view, an ancient method of giving this under the guise of palatable food is well worth knowing. Mix a slice or two of well-browned toast, or pie-crust, with some strong meat-extract, or gravy; add pepper, salt, and herbs, and heat the whole so as to produce an aromatic, and flavoursome dish; then mingle your dose of Castor Oil therewith (choosing the tasteless sort), and administer the combination at a hungry moment, without revealing its medicinal character, but merely describing it as a meat dish which the doctor has ordered. By the adoption of this plan a patient may, without knowing it, be induced to take Castor Oil with avidity, and to declare between the mouthfuls that such Oil (which has been perhaps previously suggested, and refused with aversion) is one of those disgusting things which he never could, and never will take! Carlyle called Castor Oil "the Oil of Sorrow."

With regard to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament, - pouring Oil and wine into the wounds of the traveller by the wayside, - it has been pointed out that the words of the text signify "he bound up his wounds, pouring on, not in, 'Oil, and wine.' " In other words, as the Good Samaritan applied the bandage he kept pouring Oil upon it, to make it remain soft, and prevent it from stiffening, while adding wine to stimulate, and cleanse the parts. Such (as we know from Galen) were the recognized therapeutics of the past; whilst more than a century later on a paste combining these two liquids was a popular pharmaceutical preparation. Friction of old bruises, and painful chronic swellings, with Olive Oil, in conjunction with some warming spirit, is a long-established domestic remedy. In the peasant speech of Devon, where swollen neck-glands are called "waxing curls," one may hear it said: "Aw, poar little blid; 'er idden very well; 'er waxing curls be down, an' I've a bin rubbin' um back wi Arts'orn an' Oil." Olive Oil is the best medium for frying, at about 350° Fahrt., suddenly plunging the substance into the pan of boiling oil, and leaving it there for three, or four minutes. This process differs entirely from the usual so-called frying, in which the fat is regarded merely as a means of preventing the substance from adhering to the surface of the shallow pan. True frying produces an instantaneous coagulation of the albuminous proteids on the surface, so that any escape from within of soluble substances is thus hindered, whilst the outside temperature is so high (as with fish, for example) that the food is practically cooked throughout its whole thickness almost immediately. At high temperatures some inferior fats develop fatty acids, which are trying to a feeble digestion. An English citizen was being conducted round the galleries of the White House, New York, by an American gentleman, to whom he remarked, "What a large number of portraits you have here!" "Yes," said the guide, in a dry, matterof-fact way, "in America we generally put our men of note in oil," speaking just as if they were tinned Sardines. By the first London Pharmacopæia, 1618, an Oil of St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum), was ordered to be made. It possesses a specially beautiful red colour. This oil prepared from the plant-tops is highly useful for healing bed sores and ulcers. It has a particular virtue for allaying spinal irritability if rubbed into the back bone. The flowers when bruised between the fingers yield a bright red juice, so that the herb has obtained the title of (Sanguis hominis,) human blood. Furthermore, it is "Medicamentum in mansâ intus sumendum" to be chewed for its curative effects.

As supplementary to the commendation of Cod-liver Oil specifically for consumptive patients, some facts respecting the open-air treatment recently brought by physicians into universal vogue (as promising to altogether eradicate this dire and destructive disease, especially from among young persons having proclivities thereto), may be usefully brought under notice. The main ratio medendi of open-air treatment for consumptives depends on our present positive acquaintance with the bacillus which denotes tubercular consumption, and reveals itself in the sputa (phlegm, and spittle) of the infected patient; together with proofs incontestable that abundance of fresh, open, cold, dry air, by day, and by night, with plentiful sunshine, and generous food, even almost to excess, serve to exterminate this tuberculous bacillus. Nevertheless, so happy an issue during the individual lifetime, or experience of one generation, is only to be made sure of in cases of acquired consumption, without a deep-rooted, inherited tuberculous bias of longer inheritance, which is defiant of sanative expulsion by any such speedy, and plausible means. "The medical mind," as Dr. Pearse, of Plymouth, sagaciously admonishes, "is too much exercised about a bacillus as the cause of consumption, overlooking the great biological, orderly, wide, and profound correlations of this disease, -correlations which extend back often to many generations, whilst involving structure, and function." Bitter must as yet be the disappointments of many too hopeful victims, and of their over-sanguine friends, because of ingrained tubercular seeds, virulent enough to withstand a series of lives, before being totally vanquished by science and open air. All that can be patiently accomplished by the enlightened measures now under pursuance by skilled doctors, on extending lines, is to rescue the large body of consumptive sufferers in whom the disease has been personally acquired, and not inherited through innate tubercular propensities; whilst more slowly changing the whole constitutional existence of others, as yet beyond curative reach except by degrees throughout more than one lifetime. As to the methods, and prosecution of open-air treatment, sanatoriums for the purpose, in suitable positions on high ground as essential, are now multiplying under properly organized supervision. Their experience is as yet somewhat crude, yet on the whole convincing. Sir Thomas Barlow has said in a medical address (1902) at Manchester: "I believe it will be found that children are more tolerant of exposure to open winds than adults are; and the importance to healthy children of passing a great part of the day in the open air has been gradually apprehended by the rich; whilst the poor have been compelled to learn it as a rough lesson by their own conditions; but neither rich, nor poor, yet appreciate how large a slice of the twenty-four hours in every child's daily life is passed in the bedroom. The traditional fear of air, and of wide-open windows, which is perhaps a survival of ancient malarial experience, has still to be unlearned in this country of ours." Again: "The test of a climate suitable for a consumptive to winter in is not the mean height of temperature, nor even the absence of extremes, but the number of available days for getting an appetite by air and exercise, under the open sky"; so taught Dr. King Chambers as long ago as 1876. Likewise, "in springtime the sunshine compensates for a good deal of cold, although perhaps much actual warmth is not then felt from its rays, for there is scarcely any warmth in the chemical rays of the sun, -those rays which stimulate plant life, and animal life, yet are highly destructive to the microbes of disease. It is a significant observation that in April, and May, despite the cold winds which may prevail, the actinic power of the sun's rays reaches a maximum. At no other time in the year, not even during the hot days of July, and August, are the healthgiving rays of the sun so intense as in spring. Certain chemical compounds prove to be more readily disintegrated, and at a quicker rate, in April and May, than in any other months of the year. Quite a considerable number of chemical salts give greater evidence of the disturbing action of light in the spring than at any other season'; and nature herself responds to this quickening impulse, for growth is greatest, and most vigorous when the chemical activity of the sun's rays is highest; and that is, of course, in the spring." The vital processes, as concerning recovery from, or yielding to morbid states, are specially influenced by the atmospheric conditions of spring-time; notably consumptive persons are reputed capable of resisting the advance of their disease if they surmount the month of May. Tennyson, who was a faithful observer of natural operations, gives heed to this vernal influence in his touching poem, The May Queen :- "All in the wild March morning I heard the Angels call, And in the wild March morning I heard them call my soul." Furthermore, the early morning air contains more ozone than that of mid-day, which fact is to be explained by the electrical action of the dew for an hour or more after dawn, with an increase of peroxide of hydrogen beneficially, than in air later in the day. Dew is probably of vital importance to the wellbeing of both patients, and animals, to a greater extent than is known; and the beautiful expression in our Prayer Book, "Pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing," may be specially remembered in this connection. Itineris matutini gratiam accipimus." Charles Kingsley when away from his living at Eversley, 1849, for recovery after a severe illness, wrote home thus: a tremendous gale of wind has acted on me exactly like Champagne, and a Cathedral organ combined in one." Anythink for air and exercise '" (exclaims Sam Weller, in Pickwick), "as the wery old donkey observed ven they voke him up from his death-bed to carry ten gentlemen to Greenwich in a tax-cart." 666 66 During the first century of the Christian era, Celsus prescribed for combating consumption in certain cases the process of gestation, or mild shaking of the body. A modern physician now instructs thus: "I have been very much struck by the beneficial effects following a motor-car drive of from thirty to forty miles. Along with a feeling of marked exhilaration, an increased appetite, and improved sleep, there is a heightened healthy glow, which after a few days' prolonged treatment tends to become permanent. Also the disposition to cough is (in a consumptive patient) much long