What is "dippel's oil"

Dippel's oil \Dip"pel's oil`\ (Chem.) [From the name of the inventor.] See Bone oil, under Bone.

Bone \Bone\ (b[=o]n; 110), n. [OE. bon, ban, AS. b[=a]n; akin to Icel. bein, Sw. ben, Dan. & D. been, G. bein bone, leg; cf. Icel. beinn straight.]

1. (Anat.) The hard, calcified tissue of the skeleton of vertebrate animals, consisting very largely of calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, and gelatine; as, blood and bone.

   Note: Even in the hardest parts of bone there are many minute cavities containing living matter and connected by minute canals, some of which connect with larger canals through which blood vessels ramify.

2. One of the pieces or parts of an animal skeleton; as, a rib or a thigh bone; a bone of the arm or leg; also, any fragment of bony substance. (pl.) The frame or skeleton of the body.

3. Anything made of bone, as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.

4. pl. Two or four pieces of bone held between the fingers and struck together to make a kind of music.

5. pl. Dice.

6. Whalebone; hence, a piece of whalebone or of steel for a corset.

7. Fig.: The framework of anything.

   A bone of contention, a subject of contention or dispute.

   A bone to pick, something to investigate, or to busy one's self about; a dispute to be settled (with some one).

   Bone ash, the residue from calcined bones; -- used for making cupels, and for cleaning jewelry.

   Bone black (Chem.), the black, carbonaceous substance into which bones are converted by calcination in close vessels; -- called also animal charcoal. It is used as a decolorizing material in filtering sirups, extracts, etc., and as a black pigment. See Ivory black, under Black.

   Bone cave, a cave in which are found bones of extinct or recent animals, mingled sometimes with the works and bones of man.
   --Am. Cyc.

   Bone dust, ground or pulverized bones, used as a fertilizer.

   Bone earth (Chem.), the earthy residuum after the calcination of bone, consisting chiefly of phosphate of calcium.

   Bone lace, a lace made of linen thread, so called because woven with bobbins of bone.

   Bone oil, an oil obtained by, heating bones (as in the manufacture of bone black), and remarkable for containing the nitrogenous bases, pyridine and quinoline, and their derivatives; -- also called Dippel's oil.

   Bone setter. Same as Bonesetter. See in the Vocabulary.

   Bone shark (Zo["o]l.), the basking shark.

   Bone spavin. See under Spavin.

   Bone turquoise, fossil bone or tooth of a delicate blue color, sometimes used as an imitation of true turquoise.

   Bone whale (Zo["o]l.), a right whale.

   To be upon the bones of, to attack. [Obs.]

   To make no bones, to make no scruple; not to hesitate.

   To pick a bone with, to quarrel with, as dogs quarrel over a bone; to settle a disagreement. [Colloq.]

Dippel's oil (sometimes known as bone oil) is a nitrogenous by-product of the destructive distillation of bones. It is dark, viscous, tar-like liquid with an unpleasant smell which is named after its inventor, Johann Conrad Dippel. The oil consists mostly of aliphatic chains, with nitrogen functionalities and includes species such as pyrroles, pyridines and nitriles, as well as other nitrogenous compounds.

Dippel's oil had a number of uses which are now mostly obsolete. Its primary use was as an animal and insect repellent. It saw limited use as a chemical warfare harassing agent during the desert campaign of World War II. The oil was used to render wells undrinkable and thus deny their use to the enemy. By not being lethal, the oil was claimed to not be in breach of the Geneva Protocol.