Peckel Möller in his 1895 monograph Cod Liver Oil and Chemistry, “cod-liver oil was not a desirable article of consumption indeed, to put the matter plainly, it was an abomination, and no one could have taken it willingly, even once, not to speak of day after day and month after month. The oil grew darker during the rotting process, resulting in three grades: pale, light brown, and dark brown. Fishermen often applied heat to extract the last bits of oil from the smelly, decaying mass. Its manufacture was simple: cut out the fish livers (with gallbladders), throw them into barrels, and let them decompose. Northern European fishing communities used cod-liver oil for generations to restore health and alleviate aches and pains before the doctors and chemists of 19th-century Europe began to take an interest. National Museum of American History Collections, Smithsonian Institution A “Highly Disagreeable Remedy” The man with the fish endures today, a testament to the persistence of an age-old tradition, even as scientific and commercial interest in cod-liver oil has waxed and waned. His image was engraved and embossed on countless boxes and bottles of a cod-liver-oil preparation printed in full color on advertising trade cards, booklets, and posters distributed around the globe and in one instance painted several stories high on the side of a building in lower Manhattan. The man has few identifying features, but the words “SCOTT’S EMULSION” appear along the hem of his jacket.īy 1900 “the man with the fish” was famous. A common codfish, the Gadus morhua is recognizable by the brown and amber spots on its body, the light stripe down its side, and the three dorsal fins. A thick rope, wrapped around his waist, shoulders, and hands, secures the load on his back-a huge fish with gaping mouth and glassy yellow eye, its tail sweeping the ground. The man stoops forward, glances out from under the brim of his hat, legs braced under the weight of his load.
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