Abstract
AN article of food has lately been introduced which has found its way into every grocer's and chemist's shop in the country, and for which there is in all parts of the world a vast demand. This substance is variously called the Extract of Meat, the Juice of Flesh, Liebig's Extract, and in Latin, Extractum Carnis Liebigii. The name of Baron Liebig, the great chemist, is more especially connected with this compound, as he has undoubtedly the merit of having first called attention to it as a valuable article of diet. In his “Familiar Letters on Chemistry,” he devotes a letter to vegetable and animal food, and gives an account of their various chemical components. He shows with regard to all animal flesh, that besides fibrine, albumen, gelatine, and fat, it contains certain other constituents which may be separated from these by a simple process of infusion, straining, and evaporation. The substance thus obtained is the extract of flesh. This compound was known to chemists previous to the researches of Liebig, and he especially mentions those sagacious and experienced physicians, Parmentier and Proust, who had long ago endeavoured to introduce a general use of the extract of meat. They, however, regarded it as a remedy for disease and exhaustion, and recommended it as a resource for the diseased and wounded soldier on the field of battle or in camp. “In the supplies of a body of troops,” says Parmentier, “extract of meat would to the severely wounded soldier be a means of invigoration, which with a little wine would instantly restore his powers, exhausted by great loss of blood, and enable him to bear being transported to the nearest field hospital.” “We cannot,” says Proust, “imagine a more fortunate application. What more invigorating remedy, what more powerfully acting panacea than a genuine extract of meat dissolved in a glass of noble wine? Ought we then to have nothing in our field hospitals for the unfortunate soldier whose fate condemns him to suffer for our benefit the horrors of a long death-struggle amidst snow and the mud of swamps?” That which these sagacious physicians recommended for dying soldiers is now a common article of daily consumption in the households of Europe. That which was amply demonstrated to be of use to the dying soldier, was found no less adapted to restore the vital powers of the poor in our hospitals, and that which proved of benefit to the exhausted nervous powers of the poor was soon found to be of value to the exhausted nervous powers of the rich. The doctor, from prescribing it to the poor in hospitals, learned to prescribe it to his patients among the rich. The result of the action of this substance on exhausted nervous systems and debilitated frames is no delusion, it is no influence of imagination, no simple belief in doses without power, but a real experience which is accumulating from day to day, and making demands on the manufacturers of this all-potent juice, which their utmost industry cannot meet.
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LANKESTER, E. On The Extract of Meat. Nature 2, 62–64 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002062a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002062a0