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In the late 1830s, Americans could buy 'tomato pills' as medicine. The fashion began when the Ohio doctor John Cook Bennett praised tomatoes as a cure for indigestion, diarrhoea and bilious attacks, and sellers such as Guy R. Phelps soon marketed pills said to be made from the plant.

History

History

The story behind the card

Bennett, who helped found Willoughby Medical College in Ohio, began promoting the tomato as a health food around 1835, and his claims were widely reprinted in newspapers. Pill makers followed. Guy R. Phelps began selling his tomato pills in 1837, while a rival advertised Dr Miles's Compound Extract of Tomato, and the two fought a public 'tomato pill war' in newspaper advertisements, each calling the other's product a fake. These were patent medicines: branded remedies sold straight to the public with no testing and no proof that they worked. The craze faded within a few years. Bennett had a restless career: he later bred the Plymouth Rock chicken, which he showed in Boston in 1849, and in 1848 he published his work as an early user of chloroform as an anaesthetic.

Türkçe oku
1830'ların sonunda Amerika'da “domates hapı” diye ilaç satılıyordu. Bu moda, Ohio'lu hekim John Cook Bennett'in domatesi hazımsızlığa, ishale ve safra krizlerine iyi gelen bir çare diye övmesiyle başladı; kısa süre sonra Guy R. Phelps gibi satıcılar bu bitkiden yapıldığı söylenen haplar piyasaya sürdü.

Ohio'daki Willoughby Tıp Okulu'nun kurucuları arasında yer alan Bennett, 1835 dolaylarında domatesi sağlıklı bir besin olarak tanıtmaya başladı; iddiaları gazetelerde geniş yer buldu. Arkasından hapçılar geldi. Guy R. Phelps domates haplarını 1837'de satmaya başladı; rakip bir satıcı da “Dr. Miles'ın Bileşik Domates Özü”nün reklamını yapıyordu. İkisi, gazete ilanlarında birbirinin ürününü sahte ilan ederek herkesin gözü önünde bir “domates hapı savaşı”na girişti. Bunlar, o dönemde “patent ilaç” denen türdendi: Hiçbir testten geçmeden, işe yaradığı kanıtlanmadan doğrudan halka satılan markalı karışımlar. Moda birkaç yıl içinde söndü. Bennett'in hayatı da hareketliydi: Daha sonra Plymouth Rock tavuk ırkını geliştirip 1849'da Boston'da sergiledi, 1848'de de kloroformu anestezide ilk kullananlardan biri olarak bulgularını yayımladı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tomato
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