But now on the face of it reputable authorities like doc John Cook Bennett were swash the miracle properties of the fruit ( yes , a tomato plant is a yield — technically ) . Tomatoes , Bennett claimed , could ease diarrhea , dyspepsia , indigestion , and evencholera . It could counteract the “ vehement bilious attacks ” brought about by traveling . blockade more investigative enquiry , there might not be any terminal point to what Lycopersicon esculentum could do for a soul ’s composition .
Little by piffling , Bennett ’s enthusiastic indorsement took hold . Before long , hundreds of thousands of people were buying pill that claimed to have “ extract of tomato . ” In the brace of just a duo of X , the tomato plant travel from being considered toxic to nature ’s most value medicine .
Bennett was , of course , a quack . Like many self - endorsed aesculapian experts of the 19th hundred , he had precious little objective data to go on . Though he did indeedearna medical degree in 1825 and practiced in Ohio , his believability was strained when he begin selling degree for $ 10 .
Operating a diploma pulverization did not prevent him from becoming a professor of midwifery and president of the Willoughby Medical College of Lake Erie University in 1835 , where his first lecture was devoted to his pet topic : tomatoes . Bennett claimed he had visited the " Scotch and French Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons " in Montreal and was struck by their hearty endorsement of the love apple , which was hold to “ convalescent persons ” to increase their wellness . The tomato plant , which initiate in South America and add up to Europe sometime in the 16th C before becoming do it in America in the 1800s , was not normally perceive as desirable either as food or as medicine . At the fourth dimension , some southerly land delight the vegetable , but it stay more of a whodunit in northern states .
convert the American public was missing out , Bennett became a tomato gospeler , circulating a copy of his talk to various publications both locally and nationally . ( Though he was not the first : Physician Thomas Sewall gave a lecture in Washington in 1825 crediting Virginia Fannie Farmer with grow the beneficial vegetable . WriterHoratio Gates Spaffordalso spill the beans the tomato ’s congratulations in 1831 , though he cash in one’s chips right after his pro - tomato clause was bring out . ) The reason periodical like theCleveland Heraldand theMaine Farmerseemed to be concerned in his argument was that there was a acute apposition in the public perceptual experience of the love apple as harmful with his hearty indorsement of it .
Bennett , who could scarcely profit personally from his salesmanship but or else seemed to approach it with a degree of altruism , continued . Lycopersicon esculentum could relieve stomach problem , the aches of rheumatism , and more . Citing his “ thoroughgoing sketch ” of ancient texts , Bennett claimed he could see no evidence that the tomato was absent in any part of the cosmos . He publish recipe for tomato , let in tomato sauce , tomato mess , raw love apple , and the not - terribly - healthy trace of frying them in butter . He suggested people make catsup using tomato plant at a meter most tomato ketchup wasmadewith fish or mushroom . He approached huckster like Archibald Miles , who sold an badly - defined American Hygiene Pill , and advised he would be better off calling it a Tomato Extract pill .
Bennett was right . Miles had groundless success with the pills , which he dubbed Dr. Miles ’ Compound Extract of Tomato . So did Guy Phelps , a Yale medical schooltime graduate who market similar pills . Debuting in 1837 , the lozenge and their many copycats were devour by people who had been trade on the dimension of tomatoes by Bennett . ( Rather than cure looseness of the bowels , however , some of the pills were cut withlaxatives . )
Despite his advice to Phelps , Bennett himself did n’t seem to be a huge worshipper in tomato chemical compound and arrest the forward - thinking philosophy that they should be consume whole for the majuscule welfare . “ Now , if the virtue is in the tomato , ” he write , “ why not give it in its simple state uncompounded ? If it is in the medicines compounded with it , why not leave it out alone ? I manage that the love apple itself , uncompounded , have all the virtue I have ascribed to it , as I shall hereafter show . The simple extract or meat should be dole out where it is indicated , and all compounds be rejected . ”
But Bennett ’s advice had to surmount a public appetite for gismo . By 1840 , many anovulant purporting to be healthy were say to contain tomato , though it ’s insufferable to know how many peddlers really bothered inserting any sort of extract or chemical compound in their ingredients . pharmacy put up sign broadcasting that tomato products were sold there . That same year , Bennett move to Illinois and befriended Mormon leaderJoseph Smith , who took his endorsement to core . Word open in the Mormon residential district of the Lycopersicon esculentum ’s benefit .
Naturally , there was criticism from the aesculapian biotic community , which began circulating word in 1840 that many of these “ tomato pills ” contained no actual tomato . Even some agricultural way out refused to be swayed , withThe American Agriculturalistdismissing Bennett ’s actions , writing that “ the whole thing savors of the most arrant quackery . ” That did n’t stop newspapers from pluck up on the hype and cheer the virtue of the vegetable itself . One 1843 article in theBoston Cultivatordocumented acaseof a upset stomach affected role who turned his life around :
away from a caveat against “ unrestrained indulgence , ” as though peoplemight eat bushel after bushel of tomatoes in avocation of wellness , no real anti - tomato detail ever emerged . Articles recommend people might consider love apple three time daily with every meal . Cholera suffers might be vivify .
The tomato pill craze endure through 1850 , at which point American consumers had grow well-heeled enough with whole tomatoes in their meals and in catsup that a add-on hold picayune appealingness . Bennett , who had espoused the benefits of the vegetable , is still seen as being chiefly responsible for for the general American world ’s acceptance of the Lycopersicon esculentum , which still had some growing pain ahead : Earlyketchupbottlers prior to the 1876 debut of theHeinzcompany were n’t terribly hygienic , sell decayed production .
Today , Lycopersicon esculentum are considered rich inlycopene , a natural antioxidant that may have some effect against eye disease . While they ’re not the catch - all miracle therapeutic Bennett proclaim , at least he was on to something , which is more than can be enjoin for some of the otherhealth fadsof the era … like opium . In professing the ethically dubious benefits of the vegetable , the Dr. managed to reframe the tomato from a despised and possibly toxic plant to a staple of the American diet . Just not one that could cure disease .
