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BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
known, by dire experience, to all present,—its very excellence seemed to be 
the likeliest cause of its failure in a commercial point of view. The demand 
had been excessive, the supply, hitherto, had been very limited. The process 
employed in its manufacture had been suggested some years ago by Baron 
Liebig, though it had, until recently, only been carried out on a comparatively 
small scale. In the Loyal Pharmacy, at Munich, it was still prepared to a 
considerable extent, under the direction of Professor Pettenkofer, and, indeed, 
they had a ready sale for all they could make at the“ somewhat high price of 
a florin and twelve kreutzers (a little over two shillings) per ounce. The pro¬ 
cess as settled by Liebig and Pettenkofer had been adopted in the Bavarian 
Pharmacopoeia, and was closely followed in the laboratory at Munich. It 
was pretty much as follows, speaking from memory :— 
Five pounds of fresh beef cut very small and deprived of bone, tendon, and 
fat, were digested at 212° (in a steam pan) for an hour, in ten pounds of water, 
and the liquor separated by strong pressure ; the residue again digested in a 
similar way with the same quantity of water, and again subjected to pressure. 
The mixed liquids were evaporated to about three pounds weight, and allowed 
to cool; ; after standing, the fatty matter was skimmed off, and the evapora¬ 
tion continued until an extract of ordinary consistence was obtained. Ten 
pounds of meat should yield six ounces of extract. A specimen of extract so 
prepared, given him by Professor Pettenkofer during a recent visit to Munich, 
was on the table, and it would be found to possess, in a high degree, the qua¬ 
lities sought in such a preparation. The process originally devised, which 
depended only on heat and strong pressure for the exhaustion of the meat, 
had been found wasteful in practice, and had been discontinued in favour of 
the use of water, as in the formula given. 
. The large numbers of wild or semi-wild cattle slaughtered in South Ame¬ 
rica for the sake of their hides and fat, suggested an obvious source for the 
cheap production of such an extract, and, though long neglected, the matter 
had been recently taken up by Herr Giebert, a German civil engineer, resi¬ 
dent in Uruguay. This gentleman, after consulting Baron Liebig, and re¬ 
ceiving personal instruction in the mode of preparation from Professor Petten¬ 
kofer, had established works on a considerable scale in Uruguay, from which 
all the extract which had come to this country had been derived, The speci¬ 
mens were excellent, though, it must be confessed, not quite equal in point of 
tiavour and consistence to that prepared at Munich, but there seemed no 
reason why it should not become so after longer experience in its manufacture. 
I he difference between the two was chiefly attributable to faults in its prepa¬ 
ration, which were by degrees being remedied. The nature of the extract 
obtained from the flesh of semi-wild cattle did not differ from that obtained 
from domesticated oxen ; it was, however, singular that th e proportion of ex¬ 
tractive matter to flesh was greater in the latter than in the former. Thus 
the flesh of wild cattle yielded about three per cent, of extract, that of do¬ 
mesticated oxen about three and eight-tenths per cent., or about one-fourth 
larger quantity. 
He should say very little on the purely chemical portion of the subject; 
lor, though he had made a considerable number of experiments, hoping to 
determine some of the chemical questions which arose, he had been com¬ 
pelled to leave them in a half-finished condition. The extract was soluble in 
boiling water, about one-half soluble in alcohol, and partially soluble in cold 
water. It appeared to contain creatine, potash, lime, and magnesia, with 
phosphoric and lactic acids. The insoluble residue, after treating with cold 
water, appeared to be chiefly creatine and phosphate of magnes a. When 
examined under the microscope, the extract showed large crystals of creatine 
and phosphates. One very singular point in connection with it was the 
