Beemans Chewing Gum

History

This page is the history about beemans gum, you can also read the history of chewing gum.

Beemans Chewing Gum History

The history of Beemans Chewing Gum is inextricably linked with the state of science and medicine in the 1800s and with two earlier discoveries that made Dr. Beeman's invention possible.

Theodor Schwann, a physiologist and biologist in Cologne, Germany, was the discoverer of the first animal enzyme in 1836. He named it 'pepsin' from the Greek word pepsis meaning digestion. Pepsin breaks down proteins.

By 1869 Santa Anna, the Mexican general at the Battle of the Alamo and later a Mexican dictator, was living in exile in New York City. He had the idea that chicle might be used to replace the hard rubber on carriage tires. Chicle is a gummy substance from the sapodilla tree, a tropical evergreen tree native to Central America. Thomas Adams was intrigued by this idea and bought a ton of the chicle gum to experiment with. Although his attempts at making tires for buggys were repeated failures, Adams did find the substance useful as a base for chewing gum.

The groundwork had been laid for an Ohio physician to combine these ideas and come up with an invention of his own. But he needed a push. It was actually his bookkeeper, Nellie Horton, who suggested that he put the pepsin into chewing gum. Until then, Dr. Beeman had been selling bottles of powdered pepsin. In an era when peddlers had earned the unsavory reputation of being snake oil salesmen for pushing tonics and elixirs of dubious value, Beemans gum was a novel and fairly effective aid in digestion.

In 1879 when Beemans gum was first introduced, there were no genetically engineered or highly processed foods to worry about. Most American's had jobs that required a higher level of physical activity than we have today, and Henry Ford would not be discouraging the nation's healthful walking habits by setting up his assembly line and making car ownership attractive for another 30 years. Perhaps we can forgive Dr. Beeman's first foray into product marketing—he chose to put a picture of a pig on the wrapper and added the slogan, "With Pepsin, You Can Eat Like A Pig."

Below is one of the ads that were used for marketing the new pepsin chewing gum, it states:

Beeman's Original Pepsin Chewing Gum

I PUT PEPSIN INTO GUM

Pepsin had long been famous as a relief for indigestion.  Yet no one had thought of using Pepsin in chewing gum.

As a food chemist I saw it's wonderful possibilities. So I devised my own formula for gum. I included pure Pepsin and the finest of chicle. Thus I produced Beeman's - the original Pepsin Chewing Gum.

As a preventive or relief for indigestion, or all other ailments included by indigestion, I believe my chewing gum is unexcelled.

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