3-085-771 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Advertisement for Bovril, 1898. A woman convalesces in bed. 'BOVRIL RESTORES HEALTH - BOVRIL is the perfection of Concentrated Ox Beef, and fortifies the system against INFLUENZA; but if unfortunately this disease holds us in its " grip," BOVRIL is prescribed by all Leading Physicians to hasten RECOVERY. BOVRIL LIMITED, Food Specialists and Hospital Purveyors, LONDON, Contractors to Her Majesty's and Foreign Governments. CHAIRMAN: The Right Hon. LORD PLAYFAIR, G.C.B. LL.D.' Johnston's Fluid Beef, later called Bovril, was originally created by John Lawson Johnston to feed troops. The first part of the product's name comes from Latin bovinus, meaning "pertaining to an ox". Johnston took the -vril suffix from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's then-popular novel, The Coming Race (1871), the plot of which revolves around a superior race of people, the Vril-ya, who derive their powers from an electromagnetic substance named "Vril". Therefore, Bovril indicates great strength obtained from an ox. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.