Castor Oil

Lt. Dwight Rudder RFC:
After forty years of association with aircraft, your contemporaries have promoted you. Henceforth, you are Maj. Dwight Ridder, RFC.
Hugh Trenchard

[Terry_Crisp]

I have never forgotton reading (although I've forgotton where) that Blackberry Brandy was a partial cure for the effects of breathing Castor oil. It was speculated that therefrom arose the image of the inebrieated aviators of WW I flying Chinese,ie. Won wing lo.

Terry,
The story about drinking brandy to overcome the effects of diharrea was in the form of a joke. It was said that after about 4 swigs, you no longer gave a s--t.
As for the cement joke above, it was also said that using old cement sacks for toilet paper did the trick.

But John, with 4 swigs of alcohol AND the castor oil, you just might give a s--t!!!!!!!
Regards,
Steve

Ugh! I'd rather be flying a Stearman than a Camel!

My formal training is in toxicology and biochemistry, I need to issue a warning. Castor beans are very toxic, castor oil is less toxic (notice I said less toxic, in a large doses it too kills), because the beans are crushed then heated to denature a very nasty protein. Even handling castor beans can cause symptoms. I hope this bit of biochemical trivia adds to the discussion.

Barton:
As the resident expert on castor oil, would you please answer this question that has been nagging for years.
We know that several aviators who flew Camels were afflicted with acute gastritis to the point that it interfered with their flying and fighting ability. Was castor oil fumes and possible poisoning therefrom the cause of these symptoms?

Several points:
Roy Brown, the Canadian ace and reputed victor of MvR, was existing on a diet of milk and brandy when he and Wop May had that run-in with MvR. However, there was no indication that this was from flying rotary engined Camels. Ray Collishaw visited him just prior to the MvR flight and said he was totally worn out and should have been rotated out of the line. He had an ulcer (or so they thought) and was battle fatigued and the only thing that helped was brandy and milk. Then again, maybe it was castoritis and not an ulcer.

Point two:
Several pilots, Billy Bishop included, mentioned the problem of oiling up your engine by gliding too long. Apparently the castor oil was still being injected into the cylinders, at least enough to coat the spark plugs, while gliding. When the pilot went to restart the engine he got a nasty shock. Bishop mentioned that he almost landed in German territory early in his career flying a Nieuport 11 because of oiling. Apparently they glided when crossing the front (so as not to arouse the enemy gunners) and some times to save fuel.

Gliding with a rotary engine equipped aircraft was accomplished by keeping the blip switch down, which disconnected the primary current to the coil. The engine continued to rotate with the airscrew, so unburned petrol and castor oil continue to flow through the cylinders. It had a tendency to foul the flugs, so when the blip switch was released, ignition restored, some of the plugs would not fire. This condition was made even more critical by the fact that oil remained in the cylinders and was thrown outward toward the plugs by centrifugal force.
There are rare incidents of a pilot being forced down, then getting out, restarting his engine
and taking off again.