“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” This line from the musical, “Mary Poppins,” describes how mothers used to con their children into taking their medicine, whether it was prescribed by the family doctor or was a tonic that the mother believed would cure “whatever” might be wrong with a child or would at least ward off what illness “might” come along to plague her special charge.

Modern “miracle drugs” like penicillin, the sulfas and antibiotics were obviously not available to settlers. They had to rely on home remedies or patent medicines that were distributed by Medicine Wagons or mail-order houses. By 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act that restricted false medical claims and thus cut down the use of these sometimes useless and sometimes dangerous tonics.

But some of these so-called healthy tonics have stood the test of time and are considered by some, especially natural health enthusiasts, to have definite health benefits. One of these is cod-liver oil. Many adults probably remember the slippery consistency and the fishy smell of cod-liver oil, and how their mothers slipped a spoon of the foul-tasting oil into their mouths and made them swallow.

Cod-liver oil was first used to fuel lamps all over Europe; in fact the Norwegian name for it is “lysi” meaning light. For many years the oil was Norway’s main export commodity. Today, the main exports are petroleum and petroleum products, but they still export 442 metric tons of cod liver in a year, according to the “Viking” magazine.

In 1854, a Norwegian pharmacist, Peter Moller, produced purer oil by steam-boiling the cod livers instead using the ancient method of boiling them in an open vat. Moller’s Cod-Liver Oil is still promoted today as a “pure, natural product.”

“There is a long tradition in Norway for supplementing the habitual diet with a daily spoonful of cod-liver oil,” said Willy B. Eriksen, a medical researcher at the University of Oslo. “Originally, this diet supplement was taken to prevent deficiency of vitamin A and vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency leads to unsatisfactory calcification of the bones, known as rickets. This was once a large problem for many Norwegian children.”

During World War II the British government provided cod-liver oil for pregnant women young children and the elderly. The government felt the benefits of this natural product justified continuing this program until 1971.

Many research studies have been made, especially in Norway, as to the effects of cod-liver oil on aches and pains, especially arthritis, but nothing has been confirmed.

But ask any Norwegian today, whether he be a resident of that country or a third-generation immigrant to this county, and you are likely to be told that a daily dose of this pungent remedy will prevent you from getting colds and generally strengthen your health. Or as one old-timer used to say, “It is good for what ails you, and if nothing ails you — it’s good for that too.”

But be sure to take it with a spoonful of sugar.

Source: “History of Cod Liver Oil,” http://evclo.com/history/