Proceedings of the Upsala Medical Society: How it all started 150 years ago

Historical retrospective on the Upsala Medical Society's Proceedings that includes a detailed account of Swedish chemist August Almén's chemical critique of Liebig's meat extract (published in the Proceedings in the 1860s-1870s). Almén analysed the extract and found it contained very little fat or protein, but mainly salts and small nitrogenous substances such as creatine and creatinine, which he characterised as without nutritive value and normally excreted via the kidneys. Almén calculated the true nutritive value of Liebig's extract as 'almost nil.' He condemned the company's advertising claim that 34 pounds of meat were used to make one pound of extract as misleading consumers into believing they were receiving 34 pounds' worth of beef nutrients. Almén noted that a similar mixture of salts could be prepared for roughly 1% of the price. After Liebig published a letter in The Lancet defending his product, Almén commented in the Upsala Proceedings, ending with the Latin 'Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur' (The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived).