349 
LIEBIG’S EXTRACT OE MEAT. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—The drift of Baron Liebig’s letter in your last number will scarcely, we 
think, be intelligible to those of your readers who are not aware of what has 
been taking place in connexion with Extract of Meat; and we therefore deem 
it well to draw attention to some remarkable statements which that letter 
contains. 
Baron Liebig tells us at the outset, that he has accepted the office of Director 
of the Scientific Department of Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company Limited, 
and “ on conditions calculated to offer to the public a complete guarantee of the 
genuineness and purity of the Extract manufactured by that Company.” He 
further adds that he not only controls the manufacture in South America, but 
also its quality when sold in Europe. 
This is highly plausible: it is something like saying~“If you wish to have 
Extract that is genuine, buy it of the Company of which I am a Director.” 
But Baron Liebig goes a step further: 
“It is extremely difficult,” says he, “as regards extracts of meat, the 
“ genuineness and purity of which are not discoverable by the eye, to pro- 
“ tect the public against fraud; all manufacturers prepare their extract 
“according to what they call ‘ Liebig’s process’: but since I have given 
“ only general and not special directions for manufacture, it so happens 
“ that every one fills in the details after his own fashion, and the conse- 
“ quence is that not one of these extracts is, in its composition, like another. 
“ There exist only two special directions for the manufacture of extract of 
“ meat, the one in the Bavarian Pharmacopoeia, the other in the Pharma- 
“ copceia Germanica, but these directions are not mine.” 
Thus Baron Liebig not only claims to control the manufacture and quality of 
the Extract to which he refers, but implies that there is some secret essential to 
the process, suppressed in his published directions, but now imparted to the 
agents of the Company with which he has connected himself, and the formation 
of which was registered 4 Dec. 1865. How far the spirit of this statement 
accords with what Baron Liebig published before the Company existed, we will 
leave others to judge from the following extracts : 
Since my experiments on meat in the year 1847 {Aiinalen d. Chemie u. 
Pharmacies Bd. 62), I have constantly endeavoured to promote the manu¬ 
facture of Extract of Meat after the method I have described, in countries 
where beef has- a lower price than with us. 
Since the introduction into the Bavarian Pharmacopoeia of this Extract of 
Meat (which must not be confounded with the so-called Consomme or 
Bouillon tablets) s it has proved of great efficacy in cases of impaired power 
of assimilating food, etc. 
The introduction into Europe of Extract of Meat at half or one-third the 
present price, from countries where meat has almost no value, wmuld be 
regarded as a real blessing to the population of Europe. I had directed 
attention very earnestly to the manufacture of Extract of Meat in Podolia, 
Buenos Ayres and Australia, and was always ready to make known the 
method of preparation to persons who showed themselves disposed to 
become acquainted with it, and to assist them with my advice.* 
These sentiments are worthy of a scientific man occupying the eminent posi- 
* Translated from the Annalen der Chemie und PJiarmacie, Bd. 133 (1865), p. 127. 
