In the 1830s, ketchup was sold as medicine — for baldness, jaundice and all 🍅

In the 1830s, American patent-medicine makers bottled tomato ketchup and sold it as a cure for everything from baldness to jaundice. This wasn't pure fraud: tomatoes were genuinely believed to have medicinal power, and ketchup was an easy way to concentrate that power into a swallowable dose. ^[1][2]

Why tomatoes were considered medicine

For much of the 18th century, many Europeans and Americans avoided tomatoes, fearing they were poisonous. That changed in the early 1800s, when doctors and writers began promoting the tomato as a health food. By the 1830s, the tomato was celebrated as a cure for indigestion, dyspepsia, and liver complaints. ^[2][3]

One influential figure was Dr. John Cook Bennett, an Ohio physician who in 1834 published claims that tomatoes could cure diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera. His writings helped spark a tomato-medicine craze, and manufacturers rushed to bottle the fruit in concentrated form. ^[2][3]

From health food to patent medicine

Entrepreneurs like Archibald Miles of Ohio sold 'Miles's Compound Extract of Tomato' as a cure-all pill. Competing brands followed, advertising tomato ketchup and tomato pills for ailments including baldness, jaundice, and rheumatism. The products were often little more than tomato pulp, spices, and sometimes laxatives. ^[1][2]

• Baldness: tomato extract was claimed to restore hair growth. ^[1]
• Jaundice: the yellow skin of liver disease was said to be cured by tomato pills. ^[2]
• Indigestion and dyspepsia: the most common and plausible-sounding claim. ^[2][3]
• Cholera: Bennett and others promoted tomato medicine during outbreaks. ^[3]

The backlash and the shift to condiment

The tomato-medicine bubble burst in the 1840s. Doctors and journalists exposed the pills as ineffective, and some manufacturers were accused of adding dangerous ingredients. At the same time, ketchup was evolving from a thin, watery medicinal extract into the thick, sweet, vinegar-based condiment we know today. ^[1][2]

By the late 19th century, ketchup had shed its medical claims and become a staple on American tables. The episode remains a striking example of how a food can be repackaged as a cure-all when scientific understanding is still developing. ^[2][3]

“The tomato pill mania was one of the most remarkable delusions that ever swept over the American mind.”

— Attributed to a 19th-century medical commentator, as quoted in food history sources