JF Ptak Science Books
Riding the last waves of wear into the public conscience and pocketbook come these two ads, published in a very large full-page format in the Illustrated London News in August 1918, just a few months before the end of WWI. Yes, no doubt there was a public "nervousness" about the affairs of the self/state/world in general, and yes there was a problem at this point with the beginning of flu season (which would soon develop into a world-wide pandemic that killed millions), and I guess the makers of Sanatogen and Oxo thought that they could make a positive impact on these things. Considering that Sanatogen was a tonic and both a relaxing and a vitalizing agent, and made of 95% milk protein, probably would not make much of an impact in anyone's nervous system. Same deal too to Oxo--apart from water the major ingredients were flour, beef fat, and dried beef bone, and probably whatever beefy thin might have fallen to the floor at the slaughterhouse. Certainly there was no good to come of treating a deadly influenza with beef fat--except of course that the manufacturer would do well distributing dietary supplement made of the stuff that has almost no value of any sort.
So, I guess I'll need to check out Oxo for the winter of 1918/19 and see how often this ad appears--it wouldn't be until the fall of 1918 that the pandemic would begin, killing about as many people who were killed in the just-ended war. Combating infectious disease with left-over stuff from a beef killing floor was probably not a hope-filled thing.
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