The story of halibut oil (1948)

from the first beginnings of our society small boats have put out from the ports of this country braving the hardships of sea life to earn a precarious living from the ocean's wealth with the industrialization of our times new methods have come about for increasing the fisherman's hall but oddly enough the most valuable fish the halibut is still caught by the oldest of all methods that of hook and line for this fish the lion boats must steam five days out from port into icelandic waters they alter their fishing grounds with the seasons their catch varies but halibut is their prize they must have enough ice aboard to preserve their catch in their stores for a month their heading bait too must be used frozen and fresh the halibut is most fastidious they must load up with fuel to steam three thousand miles they must be able to change their ground each night should the need arise in all the ships engines will be turning continually for up to thirty days and nights with the tide the ship puts out on her long voyage she is only 120 feet long on the water soon she will be rolling like a thing damned but as she leaves her moorings she moves slowly round to follow the sun fishermen are superstitious race be it ever so much easier the skipper will never maneuver his ship against the sun's rotation until she is cleared of the heart now she will steam over a thousand miles her missing sail set to steady her to a roll that is purgatory to a landsman to walk her decks in a flat calm is to know a sense of achievement to do so with a sea running encumbered by heavy boots against the constant wash with areas soon covered with fish slime is to tempt fate as the fishing ground is reached the hauling winch is connected and the skipper sends down one of the crew to read the log from experience he has chosen his position as they lie hove too the lines are drawn up from the hold and a damned or boy is put out to mark the position the first day's shooting will be at a currently new adventure this time they will strike gold this time their lines will not break but full to the scuppers she will be steaming back tomorrow or the next day to land to their women folk to that nirvana of all toilers the cozy welcome of a four rail bar perhaps one day this will happen at four o'clock in the morning fishing starts as the ship steams slowly forward the hooks are baited in careful and rhythmic rotation with frozen herring one half to each hook in turn each of four men takes his correct hook in anticipation baits it then waiting his moment casts it over the side a further linesman checks the line to see that it runs evenly away one error and the line would have to be cut should a hook which will hold a 20 stone halibut catch into a man's flesh or his clothing he would quickly be pulled over and under there must be no hitch from start to finish now the big moment arrives after some four hours the damned and anchor at the final end of the line are hauled aboard the anchor is attached to a stout line known as the trotter at intervals of 21 feet on the trotter are attached lighter lines each nine feet in length with a hook at the end in all there are 24 lines attached after the trotter covering some 10 miles there are six linesmen to each ship including the skipper each owns four lines for which he is responsible each will take his turn at the winch and hall until his line is done the hauler coils his the man to follow stands at his side and brings in the fish removes the hooks from their jaws throws the fish into a pond and tips the hook that is he winds the line round the half of the hook to stop it catching or doing damage should several fish appear in quick succession like this batch of cod the nearest man will drop his work for the moment and equally unhook tip or remove the fish into the pond to get through the day's work the hauling must go on without interruption for the lions must be laid afresh each morning as the halibut seems to prefer its food by day a gaffe is used to land the fish and a pronged fork to facilitate unhooking them and also to serve as a crowbar to stun them should they take a dislike to their new surroundings as the line comes to an end someone supplies a fresh basket without asking another picks up the loosely coiled line and takes it forward under the whaleback of the ship at the bow others again are preparing the lines for the next day's shot the hooks are untipped and carefully examined if they're damaged new ones replace them if the line is worn or frayed the bad part is cut out and the ends spliced one break and the hauling may be held up several hours that will mean no sleep each man makes it a matter of pride that his line shall not cause drive because of the extreme pressure under a thousand feet of water drawing the line up from this tremendous depth necessitates considerable skill on the part of the man in the wheelhouse he must give the ship sufficient and constant motion to counteract any tide and ease the hauling for the man at the witch the gutting heading and removal of fish livers goes on throughout the day after the first batch of fish has accumulated these gulls have followed the ship from port being sure of their rations which only their own competition will reduce the fish surgery is incredible in its accuracy and speed a full pond of fish will be cleaned and cleared in the space of a few minutes slower head signals alignment of the skipper the hall is getting rather stiff yes it's definitely making heavier work maybe there's something worthwhile coming up you can't afford to take chances maybe hold it if it is a halibut and they might be hard to see in the water it's careful does it a jerk on the line will free him immediately if it is a halibut about as the linesman call it it's all hands to the job what is it it's a butt his head must be kept up or they'll lose a real genie is as the fisherman call all halibut over 10 stone a precise incision and his liver is out a quick movement and his gallbladder is over the side the bile oddly enough is an excellent cleanser the fishermen use it to spruce up their sunday best another but things are looking up again the swift moving knife is at work the valuable livers are carefully selected and kept they belong to the firemen as the deckhands are called they are the crew's perks to be shared amongst the six of them yet another butt maybe the cameraman aboard isn't a jonah after all maybe it will be a big shot this trip this is the time of smiles the crew is joking and laughing nothing seems can depress them now another liver that's another couple of pints nothing can possibly go wrong today even the cobra gargantuan another check to the skipper to ease her off a little everything is going ahead now with the regularity of built production in a factory the mate the oldest hand at the game can still bring a genie aboard single-handed it's rumored that he eats their livers raw that's probably a libel as the halibut liver bucket fills up one of the firemen takes it over to the 40 gallon barrels at the side of the ship these are where the butt livers are stored the other types of liver are put into a steam boiler by the firemen and the oil crudely drawn off the extraction of halibut liver oil is a complex process these livers will be carried home as they are as the day draws slowly towards its clothes the cook having finished his own chores takes a hand at cutting up tusk into dollops which will be used as bait along with the heading the following morning now the fish are stored in the hole amongst the ice and salt this is the mate's job below he is responsible for the condition of the shot when it is delivered to market the butts are most carefully scrubbed and handled a heritage from the days when they were bought for appearance as well as quality the tradition remains the end trotter is coming in soon the dam will be aboard and the day's work finished today there's been no trouble it is but half past 10 the fishermen have had a good day they've worked only 16 hours during the night the two engineers keep watching turn as the ship is moved by the tide from the marking damned they start their engines and steam slowly back to it today things are different the breeze is up the ship is rolling like a pig the deck is mostly a wash the crew have taken to their oil skins hauling the line is a tricky business many of the larger fish will be lost as the ship jerks and plunges perhaps two the line may break this will mean creeping that is to say the ship will be headed a short distance into the tide the engine stopped and grappling irons thrown out then as the tide moves the ship slowly forward across the fishing line the man with the grappling line hopes that his hooks will catch onto it and this at a thousand feet walling is getting stiff is this another big genie or has the line got caught up it's free far too free the line is broken this means no sleep tonight the crew stand about this consonant a dan is put out to mark the position the mate stands by with the grappling irons ready over they go one two three four the mate holds his line taught and tries to feel the bottom now there's nothing to do but stand about and wait income the creepers one are they going to be lucky two they've got it and so fishing starts again sometimes with luck sometimes without until the hole is full and the skipper decides that this night they will pack up and start their long steam home during these five days the winch is taken down the decks are washed and cleared and the gear is stored away below the men are now content and are counting the hours until they are once again ashore by the time the ship docks every single man of the crew has washed shaved and changed out of an unacknowledged difference to the land his hometown and his women folk customs officials come aboard to seal the bond and ensure that for the three days the fishermen are in port they shall be treated as landsman and pay landsman's prices next morning at four o'clock the unloading starts in the market the fish are hauled ashore laid out according to weight and category and marked for their various places of distribution later in the day the little oil boat comes alongside and with its steam winch it soon hauls aboard the barrels in which the halibut livers have been stored these will be taken to the factory and processed to remove the oil and so with the last job done the line boat lies solitary and deserted for the moment forgotten by her crew but in two short days she will be seeing them all over again another icelandic voyage will commence before then however the halibut livers will have been taken to the factory for processing to remove the valuable oil here they will be made to give up those vitamin treasures unsuspected until 20 years ago these rich supplies of vitamins vitamin a and d are found dissolved in the oil of the halibuts liver their extraction is normally carried out on a large scale in the factory here it is demonstrated as a laboratory process only the livers are first minced to allow reagents to deal with them more quickly they are now placed in a tank a solution of caustic potash is added the potash breaks up the tissue and materials of the livers and so releases the oil for this to happen the contents of the tank must be brought to the boil on the large scale this is done by blowing in live steam here a gas burner is used the mixture is then allowed to stand for several hours some of the fats present in the halibut liver oil form a soap with a potash and this turns the liberated oil into an emulsion this emulsion is broken so that the oil floats to the top after which it can be separated from the soap by drawing off the soap layer to ensure complete separation the crude oil is washed by agitation with water and then passed through a centrifuge the oil is next deodorized that is the volatile substances responsible for the fishy smell are removed for this purpose it is filtered as shown here on the actual factory scale and then led to a large closed vessel connected to powerful vacuum pumps steam is blown through the oil to volatilize the fishing components which are carried off as vapor by the vacuum to condensers the oil is now clean and clear and fit for consumption having extracted the oil on a large scale from a catch of livers the next thing is to determine its potency that is to say the amounts of vitamins a and d present this is always done in the laboratory the potency varies from fish to fish according to age season etc and also from catch to catch for the vitamin a tests the oil must be made as free as possible from non-vitamin material accuracy is the keynote of this and the following testing operations since the amount of vitamins present though small is very precious the fatty non-vitamin materials in an accurately weighed amount of oil are turned into a soap by boiling with alcoholic caustic potash the small amount of material which has not been turned into a soap now contains all the vitamins this material is dissolved out by shaking with ether on standing the vitamin ether solution separates from the water and soap as a distinct layer the soap solution is drawn off shaken with fresh eva and the process repeated this is performed some five or six times the various ifa solutions are then mixed and washed by shaking with water and again separated the ether is finally removed by being distilled in a current of nitrogen the vitamin a is left behind in the flask as a residue this residue is now dissolved in a known volume of solvent in this case alcohol for the actual determination of the amount of vitamin a present the determination is now done by physical chemical methods these depend on the fact that the solution absorbs light of a certain wavelength namely 328 millimicrons the amount of light absorb being proportional to the amount of vitamin a present and the thickness of the layout of solution through which it is made to pass unfortunately this light is invisible being ultraviolet light it may however be measured by means of a photoelectric cell since when it falls on such a cell it produces an electric current the amount of which depends on the intensity of light when the vitamin a solution is placed in the beam of ultraviolet light the vitamin absorbs some of the light and so less light reaches the cell the current is reduced the amount of reduction is proportional to the amount of vitamin a so that by measuring the fall in current we can calculate the amount of vitamin a in the solution the instrument used for this purpose is the photoelectric spectrophotometer the wreck containing quartz cells is removed a sample of the vitamin a solution and the test is poured into a fresh cell and inserted into the wreck which is then replaced with a blank cell in the beam the wavelength of 328 millimicrons is selected the control adjusted so that the needle on the dial is at zero on bringing the vitamin solution into the beam the current falls it is compensated by a further current controlled by a dial which is calibrated to read the percentage of light transmitted from this the amount of vitamin a present can be calculated so much for the vitamin a the amount of vitamin d present in the oil can only be measured biologically that is to say by measuring its effect upon animals rats are most commonly used these are taken from colonies carefully tended and specially inbred to ensure similarity of behavior the principle is that large numbers of young rats are fed on a diet of a carefully controlled composition containing all the necessities except vitamin d after three weeks they develop rickets this is shown by x-raying the rats at intervals until the rakitic condition is apparent the rats are given an anesthetic and placed beneath the x-ray tube on a shielded photographic film a standard exposure is made and the film developed to show the bone formation but acidic condition shows itself on the film as a gap between the limb joints being most apparent at the femur this is due to the lack of bone growth owing to the absence of vitamin d on the right is a rat with rickets used as a check on the left a rat with normal bone formation the rats are now divided into six groups groups one two and three are given known doses of an international standard preparation of vitamin d group two getting double the amount of group one and group three double that of group two the groups four five and six are given the preparation being tested five getting double the amount of four and six double letter five the dose is given by the mouth with a micro syringe which accurately measures doses of one hundredth of a millimeter after ten days on the vitamins x-ray photographs of the bones of the four-legged are taken they show bone formation which is proportional to the amount of vitamin d given to the rat the photographs are now examined by an expert who assigns a score to each bone by comparison with a standard set showing 12 degrees of cure between complete rickets naught and complete cure 12. in this way each rat of the group is given a score and the average score for the group is found since a known amount of the standard preparation of vitamin d has been given a known score it is possible to calculate from the observed score of the test sample how much vitamin d is present the calculations are lengthy and complicated and require a calculating machine for their rapid performance before the oil can be sent to its consumers all over the world it must be adjusted to a fixed content of the vitamins a and d so that the consumer knows that when he takes a definite dose of oil he is getting definite amounts of vitamins for the oil is but the vehicle the vitamins the thing this fixed vitamin content is affected by mixing the calculated amounts of oils from the various catches in large tanks the blend is finally clarified by passing through centrifugal machines after which it is again tested to check strength it is now ready for making up either in bottles or in capsule form a certificate of the vitamin potency determined in the final test is attached to each bottle or package of capsules this practice was introduced by the crooks laboratory as a guarantee of the quality of their material now untouched by hand gallon after gallon of halibut liver oil is mechanically bottled or filled into convenient gelatin capsules the world's need is great this concentrated vitamin finds its way far afield disease must be combated inadequate food supplies must be augmented with the necessary health giving material and so must badly selected diets health is prepared for distribution this is the end of the long chain a chain in which man has added his skill and knowledge at each link the natural cycle of organic life concentrates and stores essential vitamins in the liver of the halibut the fisherman adds his courage and endurance the technician his labors in operating the machines and extracting the oils the chemist has precision and skill to test and analyze the doctor the biologists find out how best use may be made of the vitamins to satisfy human needs that first triumphal discovery of vitamins some 35 years ago has borne its full fruit the small rich globules of concentrated health harvested from the arctic seas are now available to all people in all lands