Drs. Cod, Halibut & Salmon

Government agents conferred a doctorate upon the Salmon last week. Once upon a time the only fish doctor was Dr. Cod Fish whose liver oil was mysteriously, disgustfully good for puny children. Then someone discovered that there was a Vitamin D which made bones straight & sturdy, prevented the bone-softening disease called rickets. Someone else discovered that cod liver oil was good for children because it contained quantities of Vitamin D. That gave joy to Parke, Davis & Co. of Detroit, Scott & Bowne of Bloomfield, N. J., E. L. Patch Co., of Boston, E. R. Squibb & Sons of Manhattan, Mead Johnson & Co. of Evansville, Ind. who have been rendering cod liver oil for years. Vitamin A in cod liver oil did not until recently fascinate the manufacturers.

Competition among the cod liver oil sellers was not nearly so bad before what happened last year when Dr. Halibut Fish was certified as an accumulator of concentrated Vitamin A in his liver. His Vitamin D content was less significant. Abbott Laboratories of Chicago and Parke, Davis fortified A-rich halibut liver oil with viosterol (a concentrated Vitamin D), called the product haliver (portmanteau for halibut liver) oil with viosterol, and exploited the trade name Haliver so vigorously, that Mead Johnson last month took six consecutive pages of advertising in one journal to remind doctors, in large sultry yellow, type, that "The Fish's . . . Name . . . Is . . . Halibut. . ."

Dr. Salmon Fish's diploma last week bore the seals of Dr. Martha Eliot of the U. S. Children's Bureau, Dr. Elmer Martin Nelson of the Department of Agriculture and Dr. Chester Deebell Tolle of the Bureau of Fisheries. Salmon oil (probably to be called Saliver, unless the connotation of saliva forbids) contains, they said, twice the Vitamin D potency of cod liver oil. Happy news to the salmon industry is that 1,000,000 gal. of the oil a year can be salvaged from canning wastes.

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