Ketchup was considered to be a medicine around 1835 and was sold as tomato pills. The idea came from Dr. John Cook Bennett at Willoughby University in Ohio who thought that tomatoes could cure illnesses such as diarrhea, jaundice, and indigestion.
Miles’s success sparked numerous imitators, leading to even wilder claims of cures for rheumatism, the flu, headaches, and more. While the claims were technically correct, it was based on the presence of compounds known as carotenoid. The problem was the level of the carotenoid were so low that the benefits would be negligible, if any at all. You would literally have to consume gallons of ketchup on a daily basis for it to cure anything.
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