Title
Beef, Wine and Iron (Liebig’s Extract)
Author
Liebig’s Extract / Distributed by Nutt’s Pharmacy
Image
Description
This tall clear glass bottle once contained Liebig’s Beef, Wine and Iron, a fortified tonic combining extract of beef, citrate of iron, and sherry wine. The label describes the preparation as a “tonic, nutritive, stimulant” useful for debility, exhaustion, impoverished blood, and convalescence. The product blended animal extract for protein, iron citrate as a hematinic, and wine as both solvent and stimulant.
The bottle retains its original paper label with the iconic Liebig’s bullhead trademark, and the lower label credits Nutt’s Pharmacy, likely a local distributor or apothecary. The mouth features an applied ring lip with cork remnant, typical of bottles from the late 19th to early 20th century (circa 1890–1910).
Condition
Good overall with expected age wear. Front label remains approximately 70% intact, with legible text despite edge losses and foxing. Glass is clear and undamaged with light internal haze. The cork fragment and flared lip are complete.
Gallery
Historical context
“Beef, Wine and Iron” tonics were popular from the 1870s through the early 20th century as restorative preparations prescribed for anemia, weakness, and nervous exhaustion. The formula drew from Justus von Liebig’s 19th-century work on beef extract, marketed worldwide as a concentrated food source for invalids.
These tonics combined three central ingredients emblematic of Victorian “building-up” medicine:
Beef extract for nourishment,
Iron salts for rebuilding blood, and
Wine as both carrier and stimulant.
The products were often prescribed by physicians and promoted as nutritional supplements for women, convalescents, and the elderly. By the 1930s, such alcohol-based tonics declined as nutritional science and regulation advanced under the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Curious Facts, Ephemera, and Trivia
Liebig’s Extract of Beef originated in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, under the Liebig Extract of Meat Company.
The combination of alcohol and iron was marketed as both invigorating and appetite-stimulating.
Beef, Wine and Iron remained a mainstay in U.S. and British pharmacy catalogs into the 1920s.
Surviving labeled bottles are increasingly rare, as many examples were reused once the contents were consumed.
Excerpt
“This preparation possesses in the highest degree the valuable properties of its ingredients… and will prove a valuable aid for all convalescents.” — from front label
Why it is in the Cabinet
This bottle represents the intersection of nourishment and pharmacology in late Victorian medicine, when tonics promised both strength and vitality through animal and mineral fortification. Its intact Liebig’s label, apothecary overprint, and elegant form make it a prime specimen of the “building-up” restorative tradition.
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