WEBVTT - Tomato, Tomato, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.640 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.759 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.360 we're back with part two of our talk about tomatoes. 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.360 You know, there was a question last time that we 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.320 explored at some length, which is this question you've had 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.280 for a while, Robert, I think based on reading a 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.920 placard at a botanical garden, which is, did the people 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:37.680 of the past few hundred years regard tomatoes as poisonous? 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.440 Sometimes there's this generalization made that you know, it used 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.199 to be that everybody thought tomatoes were poison but now 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.519 we figured out that's not true. Now, of course tomatoes 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.600 are not poisonous, but it's also the historical characterization is 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.240 a little more complicated than that, right. Yeah, Again, it 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.680 kind of depends on what part of the world you're 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.440 looking what say, you're which European nation, and during what 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.840 period of the tomatoes um rise to power as a 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:13.120 global food source. But I came across a great article 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.880 that is by the same author as the author of 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.640 a book that we talked about in in the last episode, 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.000 a book about tomatoes. Uh Andrew F. Smith. Smith is 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.160 also the author of an article that was published in 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:29.160 nineteen in the journal Pharmacy and History called Tomato Pills 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.920 will Cure All Your Ills. And this is a fantastic 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.760 article about, you know, tomato pills for your jaundice and 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.440 your diarrhea. It's a wild ride and I can't wait 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.560 to get into it. Well, let's definitely get into it. 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.080 But first, just your reminder, this is a part two. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.240 We do encourage you to go back and listen to 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:51.480 part one before proceeding by all means Part one first. Okay, So, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.560 as we discussed previously, when the tomato was first introduced 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.640 to Europe from meso America, of course, in meso America, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.640 among the waddle speaking p bowl it was cultivated as 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.560 a food crop, and then it's spread from there to 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.080 Europe and then to the rest of the world. But 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.280 when this first happened, some European writers did claim that 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.120 the tomato was was not good food, it was not 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.120 fit to put in one's body. Uh, And they wrote 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.720 as much in their their culinary and horticultural treatises. Though, 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:22.760 as we talked about last time, a lot a lot 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.239 of these writers will sort of note that, well, people 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.880 in Spain and Italy somehow eat these things, but uh, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.520 but nevertheless they are not good to eat or their 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.160 poison or whatever. But this changed over time, and by 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.760 the seventeen hundreds tomato use was definitely on the rise 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.960 throughout Europe, especially throughout southern Europe, though some of the 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.680 old ideas still lingered here and there. According to Smith, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.920 though within the culture of the United States specifically, and 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:50.880 I guess this would have been you know, the British 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.320 colonies in the east of the United States, and then 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.360 after the Revolution in the early United States, the tomato 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.040 was still pretty widely were ard it as in some way, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.799 you know, not good to eat. Definitely through a lot 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.440 of the eighteenth century, though that was changing, and then 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.880 it underwent a relatively rapid transition during a few decades 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.120 in the first half of the nineteenth century. So he 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.840 says that around eighteen twenty, it was still a pretty 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:23.560 widespread belief within the United States that tomatoes were somehow 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.280 inedible and maybe poisonous, not good to eat. But um, 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.519 he says, quote, within three decades after eighteen twenty, farmers 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.000 cultivated tomatoes the length and breadth of the country, in 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.800 almost every garden from Boston to New Orleans, and Americans 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.800 served them on every table from July to October. According 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:47.000 to a British observer, Americans served tomatoes every day, prepared 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.360 in every imaginable way, and were the scene a quanon 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.160 of American existence. So that that's a pretty dramatic shift. Yeah, absolutely, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:56.880 to go from poison to just the thing that you 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.160 eat like crazy for its entire season, Yeah, exactly. So 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.120 what led to this change in attitudes over such a 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.320 relatively short time. Well Smith notes that there were many reasons, 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.600 but it seems one of the most important was quacks. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.000 I love it, I love it, I love a good 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.960 quacks for good story. Okay, So, as we alluded to 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.280 last time, many books and supposed botanical or horticultural experts 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.799 in Europe and the colonies since the sixteenth century seemed 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.200 to think there was something wrong with eating tomatoes, you know, 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.839 maybe they were poisonous, maybe inedible. Clearly not everybody in 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.799 Europe thought this way. Tomatoes were, you know, very popular 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.680 in Italy and France and Spain and Portugal and more 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.880 and more. People of course, were of course cooking with 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.839 tomatoes all the time, but in England. Philip Miller, who 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:50.039 was a superintendent of the Chelsea Physic Garden, wrote in 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:55.920 the seventeen fifties that small yellow love apples were starting 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.280 to be directed for medicinal use by one call in 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.920 their dispensatory, and Miller even in the seventeen fifties noted that, well, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.520 even some English people are eating tomatoes in soup. Uh, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.960 though at the same time he says, quote there are 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.800 persons who think them not wholesome. So this ambiguity still 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.040 exists somewhat, But by the seventeen fifties it's clear that 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.640 some doctors and medical students are trying trying experiments with 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.039 tomatoes as medicine, and some English people just straight up 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.200 put him in the stew uh. And apparently an early 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.960 evangelist for tomatoes in the British colonies in America was 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.520 a doctor named John de Sequeira, who was born in 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.120 London but educated in Leyden, and who Thomas Jefferson claimed 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.840 had introduced tomatoes to Williamsburg, Virginia. Jefferson also claimed that 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.480 des Aquaira was fond of saying that quote, a person 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.000 who should eat a sufficient abundance of these apples would 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.880 never die. Now. I don't know if he meant that in, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.240 you know, with a touch of irony, or if he 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.600 was serious that though it does make me think that, hey, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.440 what if the humble tomato was actually the fruit of 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.760 the tree of life, Because there's always been a debate 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.080 about in the story of the Garden of Eden in 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.000 the Book of Genesis, what the fruits of these trees 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.599 are actually supposed to be. The Book of Genesis does 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.479 not say in this story what the fruits of the 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.839 Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.960 good and evil we're supposed to be a lot of 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.480 people have assumed them to be apples, but there it's 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.440 that's not explicitly stated. So people have proposed all kinds 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.839 of answers to this question. Maybe they're apples, maybe figs, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:41.559 maybe pomegranate, I think unsurprisingly, Terrence McKenna said, the story 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.839 was supposed to include a reference to a mushroom, but 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.000 what if the forbidden fruit was a tomato? Yeah, I mean, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.320 I don't know that that actually checks out with what 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.279 we know about the origins of the tomato, but I 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.400 like the idea. No, it would certainly not check out. 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.080 Like the authors of the Book of Genesis would not 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.520 have known what a tomaked was right because it was 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.159 from South America. But Smith points out that many of 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.720 the early promoters of tomatoes in the colonies were doctors, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.320 and this is not all that surprising since tomatoes were 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.000 becoming accepted during the eighteenth century as a medical plant. 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.480 For example, James Meece who published one of the first 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.040 known recipes for tomato ketchup around the year eighteen twelve. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.800 He was a medical graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.840 and he wrote about how he was familiar with the 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.680 culinary use of tomatoes from French immigrants, who were probably 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.480 Creole refugees from Haiti. But beginning in the eighteen twenties, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.840 American physicians started to talk about tomatoes as a cure 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:48.600 for what they called at the time billious diseases. These 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.880 would be diseases that were associated with disorders of the 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.880 liver or bile, which apparently sort of became a catch 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:01.440 all category for diseases involving jaundice, naza, and vomiting along 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.920 with fever. You know, if there's something wrong with your guts, 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.640 they thought you had some kind of bile problem. Smith 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.920 gives a number of examples. One is a doctor Horatio 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.880 Gates Spafford, who wrote in the New York Farmer Quote 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.880 that tomato sauce removed headaches, a bad taste in the mouth, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.280 straightness of the chest, painful heaviness in the liver, and 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.200 improved the action of the bowels. So hey, that's an 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:31.440 all in one. Yeah. But probably the single largest influence 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.200 on the tomatoes image as a promoter of good health 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.520 was a man named Dr John Cook Bennett. Robert I 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.400 have attached a sketch of him, and I noticed he 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.960 he really kind of looks a little bit like Adam Scott, 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:51.280 but in a strange military uniform with epaulets and the sword. Yeah, 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:53.200 I can see that Adam Scott. I also see a 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.400 little bit of of of Grand mof Tarke in here, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.800 So it's kind of like a combination of the two 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.719 for me. Absolute lutely so. Bennett lived from eighteen o 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.000 four to eighteen sixty seven, and he's actually probably best 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.360 known for his short tenure as an associate of Joseph 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.840 Smith and an early leader of the Latter Day Saints 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.440 movement also known as the Mormons. Before all that, Bennett 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.400 was a doctor who Andrew Smith claims founded one of 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.199 the first medical diploma mills in US history, so he's 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.760 a diploma mill pioneer. Apparently, Bennett would go around the 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.720 Midwest selling medical degrees for ten bucks apiece, and I'm 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.640 sure that created some awesome doctors, but it seems some 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.520 people didn't really like that practice. He fell under some 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.880 criticism for for selling degrees like that, so instead he 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:46.880 accepted a position as a professor of midwifery at Willoughby 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.360 Medical College of Lake Erie University in Ohio, where he 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.280 jumped decisively onto the tomato train. This would have been 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:59.160 in the early to mid eighteen thirties, and Smith writes 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:04.120 as follows quote. In his introductory lecture at Willoughby, Bennett 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:10.240 declared that tomatoes successfully treated diarrhea, violent bilious attacks, and 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:16.400 dyspepsia or indigestion. He recommended that tomatoes replace calamel because 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.319 they were less harmful, predicting that quote, a chemical extract 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.760 will probably soon be obtained from it, which will altogether 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.160 supersede the use of calamel in the cure of diseases. 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.280 Tomatoes were also good for citizens traveling to the west 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.000 or to the South, as tomatoes would quote save them 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.440 from the danger attendant upon those violent bilious attacks to 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.480 which almost all unacclimated persons are liable. So basically saying 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.640 like travel diarrhea, right, I think so, I'm not quite 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.240 sure what so is. Was there an idea at the 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.120 time that if you go to the south or the west, 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.160 you're gonna have bilious attacks? I've never heard of that before, 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.240 but oh yeah, travel diarrhea would make sense as an interpretation. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.240 But hey, just each year tomatoes, you know, drink some 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.720 tomato sauce on the train and you'll be right as right. Uh. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.520 To continue with with Smith's paragraph here, quote Bennett urged 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.440 all citizens to eat tomatoes raw, cooked, or in ketchup, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.640 as they were quote the most healthy article of all 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:22.400 the material alimentary. Bennett included recipes for tomato sauce, fried tomatoes, 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.160 tomato pickles, tomato ketchup, and eating raw tomatoes. I don't 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.360 know what the recipe for eating raw tomatoes is, but uh, 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.160 to go back to earlier, So, so Bennett is setting 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.280 tomatoes up as a foil to this substance called calamel. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.400 And this reference to calamel here. Calumel was a mineral 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.080 form of mercury chloride that was widely used as medicine 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.160 in the nineteenth century, even though nobody was quite sure 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:53.040 how it was supposed to work. Apparently, primarily what it 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.400 did was it was what they called a purgative, basically 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.600 a laxative um. But it would also cause mercury poisoning, 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.000 and it tended to kill the tissue of the mouth 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.559 and gums. So they're all these stories of people taking 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.080 calamel and like their teeth becoming loose and their mouths 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.839 kind of rotting, And even into the twentieth century, alarmingly, 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.360 calumel powder was used as a as a powder to 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.800 be applied to children's gums as they were teething and 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.160 led to these horrible conditions as a result. Benjamin Rush, 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.520 you know, the physician and one of the so called 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.720 founding fathers, he was a big fan of calamel and 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.560 promoted it. I think he even tried to give some 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.800 to Alexander Hamilton's at some point. Calumel is just terrible medicine, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:44.240 extremely worth replacing with something else. For example, calumel was 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.280 often used to treat dysentery, but as a diuretic itself, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.880 it could speed up the dehydration process. So as you 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:56.880 already have dysenterry, you're also taking a laxative and this 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.760 this actually did kill some people. So yeah, So this 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.280 is definitely an example of a so called medicine that 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.400 is not only it's not just doing nothing, it is 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.880 it is actively heaping more harm on top of whatever 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.640 you're trying to treat. Yeah, I mean, I guess I 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.400 can't verify that it was never doing anything useful, but 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.319 I think it's absolutely clear that if it was doing 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.120 anything beneficial at all, the side effects were far worse 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.160 than whatever it was trying to treat. Yeah, And like other, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.640 you know, mercury based things, I think it was just 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.120 generally used as a cure all. It was a panacea 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.920 of the time. And anything that is supposed to cure 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.480 everything probably cures nothing. So anyway, Bennett is offering up 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.239 tomatoes as an alternative to calamel. He's saying, hey, tomatoes 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.920 can do all the stuff that calamel does, accept it 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.880 without all the side effects. And so Bennett was on 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.839 the tomato train. He was soon forced out of his professorship, 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.760 but he did not give up on his tomato crusade, 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.160 and in eighteen thirty five, He repeated the claims of 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.960 his to Aato Panacey a lecture in dozens of outlets. 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:08.960 He wrote letters forwarding his address to farming and horticultural magazines, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.000 to household magazines, um. And he also wrote to other 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.520 influential Americans to convince them of his claims, including somebody 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.720 named Constantine Rafinesque who was a medical botanist and who 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.840 promoted a lot of diet based cures. So he got 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.360 some followers. Other medical authorities, or at least people who 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.720 were somewhat perceived as such, jumped on the tomato train 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.320 with him. Uh. So, I just wanted to list a 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.520 couple more of Bennett's other interesting tomato claims, as as 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.440 relayed by Andrew F. Smith. First of all, he said 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.200 that he had studied all of the ancient texts and 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.240 he his studies proved conclusively that there was nowhere on 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:52.000 Earth where the tomato was not indigenous. This was not true. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.800 we we we I think we we properly debunked that 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.120 notion in the first episode. Uh. He also attacked the 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.320 process of of steaking tomatoes. So, Robert, You've got tomatoes 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.240 growing in your yard right now, right? What what do 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:09.200 you do to to get the vines standing upright, Oh, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.440 you have to use like a metal cage and um. 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:14.560 And then as that they grow more and more gigantic, 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:15.800 you end up or at least we have to end 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.040 up reinforcing that, and and they see and if if 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.400 you're not totally on top of it, you'll still end 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.160 up with the vines falling onto the ground and tomatoes 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.520 just sitting there on the ground. Right. So most people 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.280 who grow tomatoes today they staked them in some way. 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.440 You put like a structure up and you allow the 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.840 vine to hang on that off in a metal cage 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.520 or a stick of some kind. But Bennett opposed steaking 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.640 because he claimed it was against God and against nature, 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.480 and that God had intended for tomato vines to lie 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.120 on the ground. If God had meant for them to 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.080 be steaked, he would have had them stand up on 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.280 their own. Though I think Ben it might be confused 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.640 about the fact that the tomato, of course, being a 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.720 cultivated fruit that was sort of created by humans in 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.640 a way, the original natural form of the tomato is 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.080 a tiny berry, you know, It's not this big, heavy, 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.040 juicy thing that we eat today. Yeah. Yeah, the the 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.480 fruit of the modern tomato. It's especially it's larger forms. 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.480 I mean, it's it's gigantic, it's swollen, it's breaking apart 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.600 with its own juices, you know, and it's ultimately quite 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.680 impressive the amount of biomass that these things produce enough 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.000 to wear. You know, when you first stake up that 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.480 tomato plant or or put a cage around it, you're like, oh, man, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.080 this feels like overkill. But then a month two months later, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.880 and uh, and whatever structure you raised might be struggling 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.040 to keep all of that stuff up in the air. Yeah, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.800 it turns into a precarious tower of juice. Yes. Should 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:46.600 we take a quick break before we come back to 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:55.760 discuss Spinnett's encounter with the LDS Church. Let's do it. Alright, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.160 we're back. We're talking about tomatoes as a miracle or 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.840 that for just about anything that at the very least 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.000 was a preferable cure all to a calamel, which was 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:13.199 a dangerous mercury based cure. All right. Uh, And this 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.040 claim was being made in the eighteen thirties by this 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:20.719 doctor named John Cook Bennett. Now we talked about how 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.160 he started making all these claims about tomatoes and their 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:28.400 supposed health benefits and curative properties. Apparently, in eighteen forty, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.840 after he'd been making these tomato claims for a while, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.199 he was working in Illinois and Bennett got involved with 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.160 the Latter Day Saints movement. He became friends with its 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.000 leader Joseph Smith, and his claims about the health benefits 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:47.720 of tomatoes actually proved influential within the church. But tragedy struck, 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:52.080 and in eighteen forty two Bennett got excommunicated from the 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.840 Latter Day Saints movement. He was excommunicated by Joseph Smith 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.520 himself after some kind of ambiguous scandal and involving a 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:05.600 bunch of alleged sexual impropriety, including adultery and maybe some 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.440 kind of unsanctioned polygamy, with what Smith viewed as as 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:15.600 dubious spiritual or revelatory justifications. After Bennett was banished from 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.639 the church, he sort of went ballistic on Joseph Smith 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.080 and then published a bunch of allegations against him in return. 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.760 I think he actually accused Smith of murder and fraud 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.800 and a bunch of other things, and then the two 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.560 just win at each other in a full scale pr 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:35.160 war Joseph Smith versus John Cook Bennett. But the interesting 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.920 thing was, apparently this pr war did not undermine uh 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.800 the the Latter Day Saints movements fondness for tomatoes and 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.360 acceptance of their ideas of the health benefits that had 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.080 come from Bennett. So Bennett's claims proved very popular, and 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.640 they caught on and were repeated in lots of cookbooks, 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.600 household manuals, farming and gardening journals, and even in Latter 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.919 Day Saints literature. Uh and so, so there was this 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.159 whole tomato for health craze that caught on big in 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:09.400 the eighteen thirties and continued into the eighteen forties. And 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.879 uh Andrew F. Smith points out that whatever his possibly 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:17.480 dubious medical or moral credentials, Bennett was a genuinely very 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.280 talented promoter. It seems like he probably could have been 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.640 great in the twentieth century in an advertising and marketing context, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.080 and that this contributed significantly to the popularization and normalization 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.520 of tomatoes in the United States. Uh So, Bennett eventually 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.040 predicted that you know you're you're gonna be able in 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.520 the future to get the health benefits of tomatoes without 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.880 even having to eat a tomato. You can just take 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.200 a miracle pill that will be made from a from 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:50.679 a tomato extract. And this prediction actually came true. In 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:55.920 eighteen thirty five, a doctor A. J. Holcomb of Glassboro, Alabama, 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.240 started producing pills made out of a tomato extra act, 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.399 and other pills also came on the market. Smith quotes 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.440 advertising for one brand of tomato pills from a doctor 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.440 named Dr Miles, and it goes like this, The tomato 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:17.880 used as an article of refection is highly medical, highly medical, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.760 and doubtless prevents many bilious attacks. We inferred from this 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.919 fact the possibility of preparing from it a medicine of 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.480 great virtue. Dr Miles and his associates have spent years 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:35.160 and fortunes we understand and experimenting, and finally have produced 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.439 the compound extract. It has been used by many in 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.880 the city and out of it, and is as near 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.439 we can learn, generally approve. But then I thought this 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.320 was interesting. Apparently, so Smith's sites some of the other 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:53.080 packaging copy, and some of this copy attacks calamel directly. 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:58.040 So it says, for example, humane physicians deplore the sad 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.879 evils resulting from the murph curial practice. And remember this 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.439 because calamel is mercury chloride, and we'll gladly hail the 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.520 introduction of an article that can safely be substituted for calamel. 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.199 And it goes on about how people just know in 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.480 their hearts that mercury is bad, even if they can't 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.120 explain why. Um, and that you may have to choose 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.480 between two evils of having of taking mercury or having 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.600 a torpid liver. But now they're saying, hey, you don't 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:29.639 have to have a torpid liver and you don't have 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.960 to take mercury. You can fight your torpid liver with 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.600 tomato pills. Well, that would certainly be ideal if you 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.480 wanted to consume the medicinal essence of tomatoes out of 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.400 outside of tomato season. Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:46.320 you wouldn't. You wouldn't have to go through eating a 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:48.360 mealy one in the winter if you wanted to fight 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.760 your torpid liver. Um. But but I will say that so, 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.359 while I think the tomato pill probably had very little 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.359 actual medical merit, especially for the billiest disease eas is 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.280 that they were said to counteract, it seems to me 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.480 that simply by being offered as an alternative to calamel. 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:12.840 Tomato pills or just tomatoes might have done significant medical 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.040 good just because calamel was so bad. Like, so, if 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.960 you're taking something that does nothing instead of taking calamel 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.760 and getting mercury poisoning and gangrenous flesh and rotting gums 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.760 and all that, that that actually does seem like an upgrade, 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:32.159 even though this is probably not useful as medicine. Plus 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.600 there's a hint of tomato to it, so it's got 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:36.840 that going for it. Oh yeah, I mean I wonder 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.479 if you, you know, if you're actually eating any tomato flesh, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.000 I wonder if if you could get some placebo effect 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:45.639 just from the fact that it tastes nice. Maybe not, 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.639 I don't know, that might be reaching, but anyway, it's 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:51.640 still the placebo effect is powerful. So I mean, that's 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:53.439 that's always going to be a part of any of 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.679 these considerations. Oh absolutely, I mean that that might be 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.840 something that was at work in calamel and in tomato 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.920 and tomato pills, except uh, you know, the tomatoes aren't 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.399 full of mercury um. So it seems that some of 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.960 the attacks against tomato pills did not make the accurate 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.360 charge that or at least I would guess what is accurate, 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.159 which is that they probably just didn't do much, but 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:23.119 instead accused them of, say, being inferior to calamel and effectiveness. 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:27.440 And there were some that accused tomatoes and tomato pills 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:31.200 of bringing on implausible side effects, side effects I would 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:34.600 judge to be very implausible. For example, uh Andrew Smith 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:39.160 cites one dctor dio Lewis, who was a popular lecturer 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:43.959 and a practitioner of homeopathy, who claimed to who claimed 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:47.119 that the use of tomatoes and their extract would cause 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:52.480 quote piles tender and bleeding gums, teeth set on edge, 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:57.480 and loss of teeth due to salivation, which which sounds 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:02.040 closer to the actual effects of calamel. But anyway, despite 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:05.760 these attacks, tomato pills proved very popular, and by eighteen forties, 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:09.200 Smith notes that tomato extract was listed as an ingredient 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:12.439 in lots of supposed panacea is even pills that weren't 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:15.600 just tomato pills. You know, you know this is doctor 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:20.240