ABSTRACT
SAILORS have a special use for this blubber. They smear it on the outside of ships’ timbers, so that in a rough, or rather very severe, winter, the ice-cold waters do not freeze hard round their boats and sink them, for it prevents the water from turning to ice, as I explained in Bk XI, Ch. 23 and Bk XII, Ch. 11. 1 Coachmen claim it as indispensable to them for greasing their carriage wheels, and indeed tanners also use it, as I remarked earlier in speaking of seal blubber. 2 Pliny in Bk XXXII, Ch. 1, maintains that even the Arabs are well acquainted with it, just as they are with fish-oil, for they rub it over their camels so that the smell will keep away gadflies. 3 If wood is brushed with the lungs of sea-fish, you will see it burn like oil; hence it is customary to manufacture oil from the lungs of certain fish. 4 5 When the fat of sea- and river-fish is melted down and mixed with oil and honey, it helps to give clear eyesight. It is Avicenna’s belief, too, that fish-fat is beneficial for the eye’s moisture and, compounded with honey, sharpens the vision. Dioscorides declares that the fat from river-fish, mixed with honey and melted in the sun, clears dim sight. 5 Finally, Pliny, in Bk XV, Ch. 7, says the Ichthyophagi squeeze from fish an oil substitute, which they employ for a large variety of purposes. 6
