Syst Nat. Gmelin, i. 227.

D. 1. Vertebrata. Cl. 1. Mammalia. Ord. 8. Cetacea. Cuvier.

G. 39. Teeth in the lower jaw, but none in the upper. Tube in the head, or great front.

Species 2. P. Macrocephalus. Spermaceti Whale. Willough. Pise. t.A.1. f. 3. Phil. Trans, lx. 321. t. 9.

Officinal. Cetaceum, Lond. Dub. Spermaceti, Edin. Spermaceti.

Syn. Spermaceti; Cetine (F.), Wallrath (G.), Walschot (Dutch), Walraf (Swed.), Spermaceti (I.), Espermaceti (S).

This species of whale inhabits chiefly the Southern Ocean, although it is occasionally seen in the European seas. It is a large fish, generally measuring about sixty feet in length, and thirty in circumference at the thickest part of the head, which is blunt, and about nine feet in height. It is of a blackish colour on the upper part of the body, and white on the belly. There are forty-six double teeth in the lower jaw, which is shorter than the upper; and in the head is a triangular, bony cavity, covered by the common integuments only, and filled with an oily fluid, which, on the death of the fish, congeals into a spongy mass.' The eyes are small: the pectoral fins near the angles of the mouth; and the tail forked.

1 Pog. Annalen, xxvii. p. 565.

2 Ether phosphoratus of the Paris Codex.

The spongy oily mass is dug out from the cavity of the head, and the oil separated from it by dripping.1 In this state it has a yellow unctuous appearance, and is brought to England in barrels. The following is the mode of purifying it in the great way. The mass is put into hair bags, and pressed between two plates of iron, in a screw-press, until it becomes hard and brittle. It is then broken in pieces and thrown into boiling water, where it melts, and the impurities, rising to the surface, are skimmed off. After being cooled and separated from the water, it is put into fresh water in a large boiler, and a weak ley of the potassa of commerce added to it by degrees. This part of the process is thrice repeated, after which the whole is poured into coolers, where the spermaceti concretes into a white semi-transparent mass, which, on being cut into small pieces, assumes the flaky aspect it has in the shops.2

Qualities. - Purified spermaceti is a white, crystallized, friable, semi-transparent, unctuous substance, nearly inodorous and insipid. Its specific gravity is 9.433. It melts below 212° Fahrenheit3; and at a higher temperature, 500°, it evaporates, very little altered; although by repeated distillations it is partly decomposed, and a brown acid liquor obtained. Like the fixed oils, it leaves, when heated on paper, a greasy stain, and can be diffused in water by means of the yolk of egg or mucilage. It is soluble in 13 times its weight of boiling alcohol, still more soluble in ether and oil of turpen-tine, but it concretes again as the fluids cool: it is completely soluble in the fixed oils. When boiled with alcohol, it becomes fusible at 49°, more brilliant and less unctuous, less odorous, and more soluble in alcohol: the white crystalline scales deposited as the solution cools have been called Cetine.4, Of the acids, the sulphuric only acts on it, dissolving it, and forming a dark-coloured, thick, soapy solution, which has a faint smell of sulphur. The alkaline carbonates do not affect it, but it is partially dissolved in the pure alkalies; and with hot ammonia it forms a soapy emulsion which is not decomposed by cooling.

Long exposure to hot air renders it rancid; but it may be again purified by being washed in a warm ley of potassa.

1 An ordinary sized whale will yield upwards of twelve large barrels of crude spermaceti.

2 Monthly Magazine, August, 1809. 3 Bostock', Nichoh Journ. iv. 134. 4 Chevreuil, Ann. de Chim. et de Phys, torn. vii. p. 157.

Medical properties and uses.-Spermaceti is demulcent and emollient. It, however, possesses no advantages for internal use over the fixed bland oils. It is used in dysentery and irritations of the alimentary canal, and in catarrh and phthisis: but in the latter cases it is less beneficial than the bland oils; for, as these are readily united with water by means of alkalies and mucilages, the compounds formed with them are more viscid, and better adapted for smearing the fauces. Several imaginary healing virtues were, formerly, supposed to belong to spermaceti; on which account it was and still is often given to women in child-bed. It is, however, when combined with water by means of the yoke of egg, a pleasant vehicle for tincture of opium, when the after-pains are troublesome. It forms a part in the composition of several ointments.

The dose is from 3ss. to 3jss. rubbed with sugar, or in the form of emulsion.

Officinal preparations.- Ceratum Simplex, E. Ceratum Cetacei, L. Unguentum Cetacei, L. D. Ceratum, Cantharidis, L.