Ketchup was also used as a medicine in the early 1800s.
In the 1830s, American physician John Cook Bennett promoted tomatoes as a treatment for ailments including indigestion, diarrhea, and jaundice. His tomato preparation was marketed as a medicinal remedy rather than the familiar bottled table sauce. Some sellers even concentrated tomato extracts into pills called “tomato pills.”
The medical claims were part of the era’s patent-medicine culture, when foods, herbs, and secret formulas were often advertised as cure-alls without modern clinical testing. Copycat manufacturers soon entered the market, and some products sold as tomato pills reportedly contained little or no tomato. The craze faded by the 1850s.
Ketchup itself has an older and broader history. Early ketchups were not necessarily tomato-based: British recipes used ingredients such as mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, or other savory foods. James Mease published an early known tomato-ketchup recipe in 1812, decades before ketchup became the sweet, thick condiment associated with modern fast food.