Notes and suggestions on cod-liver oil and its uses : with some practical remarks addressed to those who cannot take it / by Benjamin Clarke.

  • Clarke, Benjamin, 1821-1906.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes and suggestions on cod-liver oil and its uses : with some practical remarks addressed to those who cannot take it / by Benjamin Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/16 (page 9)
    that it effects a cure in half the time that the pale does. It seems, however, from the observations of others, that it is ques- tionable if the pale oil deserves even so much reputation. But my knowledge of their comparative value is not such that I could offer an opinion as to whether the Loflfoden should entirely supersede the pale English oil; but yet I cannot doubt hut that the former would succeed in some cases where the latter had entirely failed. Of the merits, however, of the other light brown oils, comparatively with the pale English oil, I have had no opportunity whatever of forming an opinion. If such is the action of these two oils, it becomes an interesting question whether this difference does not depend for the most part on the volatile fatty acid, of which Dr. De Jongh asserts the pale English oil contains only a very small proportion. Could not this be obtained separately for trial as an external application in nervous pains, &c. ? And as the oil at a low temperature separates into two por- tions, a solid and a fluid, in some degree analogous in their appearance to the two constituents of animal fats, stearine and elaine, it has occurred to me whether the fluid portion might not be separated, and employed as a liniment in phthisis, where patients could not take it internally. If it contained the active principle or principles, this might possibly succeed, because the oil is very readily absorbed by the skin, and the fluid portion thus separated would probably be absorbed more readily still; and supposing the solid portion to be inert, it would be a desideratum to remove it on account of its preventing the absorption of the fluid portion, at least to an amount equal to its own absorption. It appears also not at all imj)robable that the oil produces its curative effects for the most part by being taken unchanged into the circulation ; and if so, when it is taken into the stomach, the greater part so taken is at once destroyed by the gastric juice, and answers no further purpose than supplying nutriment*. And supposing its curative effects to be so produced (which may in some degree be assumed, on account of its good effects when only externally applied in rheumatism, scrofula, and diseased joints, and from its external use having cured skin-disease after its internal use had failed), the use of its most active principles as a ‘he attempU made to correct the taste by mix- ture, chiefly in the form of emulsion, have not attained the object, they havina weakened or dcstooyed the therapeutical action, which is said to depend much upon the oil being given in an uncombined state. Hay not thU be the consequence of the oil, when in the Fora of emulsion, becoming sooner and more completely acted on by the gastric juice ?