Riding that craze, ketchup was briefly sold in the United States as a what?

During a wave of enthusiasm in the 1830s around tomatoes as a health remedy, when a doctor claimed they could cure a wide range of ailments and sold so-called tomato pills, tomato ketchup itself was briefly marketed and sold in the United States as a medicine rather than a condiment, riding the same craze that convinced people tomatoes held special healing properties.

Paint and glue were not the products ketchup was marketed as during this era, the specific and rather surprising angle used to sell it was medicinal, tied directly to the broader tomato health fad sweeping through the country at the time.

The tomato pill fad collapsed fairly quickly once cheaper imitators began selling fake or ineffective versions of the product, undermining public trust, and ketchup eventually settled into its now-familiar role as a food condiment rather than a supposed cure-all.