In 1859,
Robert Chesebrough, a chemist who formerly clarified
lamp oil from
sperm oil, a waxy oil from the heads of
sperm whales, was losing business as whale oil was replaced by
coal oil. He traveled to the oil fields in
Titusville, Pennsylvania, to research what new materials might be created from this new fuel. There he learned of a residue called rod wax that had to be periodically removed from oil rig pumps. The oil workers had been using the substance to heal cuts and burns. Chesebrough took samples of the rod wax back to
Brooklyn, extracted the usable petroleum jelly, and began manufacturing a medicinal product he called Vaseline. The first known reference to the name Vaseline was by the
Chesebrough Manufacturing Company in the U.S. patent (U.S. Patent 127,568) in 1872. "I, Robert Chesebrough, have invented a new and useful product from petroleum which I have named Vaseline..." The name "vaseline" is said by the manufacturer to be derived from
German Wasser "water" +
Greek έλαιον (
elaion) "oil". Vaseline was made by the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company until the company, which merged with
Pond's in 1955, was purchased by
Unilever in 1987. == Uses ==