The tomato effect occurs when effective

therapies A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx. As a rule, each therapy has indications an ...

for a condition are rejected because they do not make sense in the context of the current understanding or theory of the

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...

in question. The name refers to the fact that

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

es were rejected as a

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for Nutrient, nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or Fungus, fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, protein (nutrient), proteins, vitamins, ...

source by most

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

s until the end of the 19th century, because the prevailing belief at the time was that they were

poison A poison is any chemical substance that is harmful or lethal to living organisms. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figurati ...

ous. A parallel concern is

medical reversal Medical reversal refers to when a newer and methodologically superior clinical trial produces results that contradict existing clinical practice and the older trials on which it is based. This leads to an intervention that was widely used falling o ...

, which is when new clinical information is based on new clinical trials or understanding of a disease, contradicting clinical practice. Medical reversal implies the original clinical practice failed to achieve success or had harms that outweighed benefits. That is contrasted with the phenomenon of replacement where a useful clinical practice is replaced by one that works better.

Examples

Tomatoes were becoming a staple food in Europe by the 1560s; they were shunned in North America since they were considered poisonous until the 1820s. Similarly, willow tree bark extract was ignored to provide relief of pain and fever, and it was not until the late 1800s with the commercial production of

salicylate Salicylic acid is an organic compound with the formula HOC6H4COOH. A colorless (or white), bitter-tasting solid, it is a precursor to and a metabolite of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin). It is a plant hormone, and has been listed by the EPA To ...

(also known as

Aspirin Aspirin () is the genericized trademark for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to reduce pain, fever, and inflammation, and as an antithrombotic. Specific inflammatory conditions that aspirin is ...

) that this treatment was prescribed to patients. In 1753, it was established that

scurvy Scurvy is a deficiency disease (state of malnutrition) resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum d ...

can be treated with

lemon The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...

juice. Despite this knowledge, it was considered an imbalance of the

humors Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 17th c ...

until the mid 1800s.

References

Medical phenomena Psychological effects Tomatoes in popular culture {{treatment-stub