The Popular Condiment That Was Once Sold As Medicine

Ketchup is one of those condiments you can always count on finding at home. It's right there, sitting in the fridge door between your salad dressing and juice boxes, ready to do its job whenever you're trying to make fries that taste just like McDonald's or figuring out how hot dogs belong in your grilled cheese. But that wasn't always the case. Just about 200 years ago, you were likely to find it stored in your medicine cabinet instead. Say what now? Ketchup as medicine? Sure, it has many uses. After all, it's your secret for spotless silverware among other things. But you probably never saw this coming.

It turns out that back in the 19th century, when the novelty of tomatoes wore off and people finally stopped believing they were poisonous, they started exploring new ways to use them. As a result, a Philadelphia scientist named James Mease created the first-ever tomato-based ketchup in 1812. Before that, asking for ketchup would probably get you a weird-tasting sauce made from fish, oysters, or mushrooms. 

But then, just two decades later, things took a rather expected turn. And that's because one Ohio-based physician, Dr. John Cook Bennett, thought ketchup somehow held the secret to curing diarrhea, indigestion, and liver damage. So, what did he do, you might wonder? He decided to turn it into so-called "tomato pills," which he then sold as a medical breakthrough.

By 1837, Dr. John Bennett had already partnered with drug manufacturer Archibald Miles to produce the pills. Soon, the pair had US papers flooded with ads for their new product called "Dr. Miles' Compound Extract of Tomato."And even though Bennett couldn't aim for a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine at the time (it wouldn't exist for another 64 years), he still fiercely promoted his invention by claiming it was a universal cure. 

But ketchup's initial success in the world of medicine eventually came to an end after it sparked dozens of competitors to create their own versions of the pills, ultimately ruining Bennett's ideals. Oh, and you guessed it — most of them were frauds. How very shocking! Some went as far as replacing tomatoes with laxatives in their formulas, and even claimed ketchup could fix fractures. 

The idea of ketchup as a medical miracle was officially abandoned by 1850 after several studies showed it works better on burgers than smearing on broken bones and risking an infection while hoping they would magically heal on their own. Several decades later, ketchup reclaimed its rightful place in the kitchen, all thanks to Pittsburgh entrepreneur Henry Heinz, who created the unique version of the condiment we all love so much by blending together some tomatoes, brown sugar, salt, distilled vinegar, and a well-chosen selection of spices.