James Crossley Eno

James Crossley Eno (1820 – May 11, 1915)[1] was a 19th-century British pharmacist known for compounding and selling a brand of fruit salt that is still popular today as an antacid.

Biography

James Crossley Eno was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of James Eno and Elizabeth Eno, who kept a small general shop.[2] He apprenticed as a druggist, and in 1846, at the end of his apprenticeship joined the staff of a local infirmary as dispenser of prescriptions.[2][3]

Building constructed for Eno in 1898 in Gatehead, across the river from Newcastle upon Tyne
Eno's 'Fruit Salt' advertisement

At some point he met the Newcastle physician Dennis Embleton, who often prescribed an effervescent compound of sodium bicarbonate and citric acid.[2] Mixtures of this type, combining a fruit acid with a carbonate or tartrate, were known as fruit salts, and they were marketed for a wide range of ailments, only a few of which (e.g. indigestion) they could actually ameliorate. Eno set up his own pharmacy in the Groat Market area of town and in 1852 began selling his own fruit salt mixture.[2][4][5] Eno gave away his compound to seafarers at the port, and in this way the name Eno became associated with fruit salts around the world.[2] In 1868, he formally founded the company Eno's "Fruit Salt" Works.[2][6][7]:253

With the success of his fruit salts, Eno's business outgrew its premises, and in 1876 he established a larger factory in the New Cross district of London.[2] He himself eventually settled in Dulwich, where he died at the age of 95.[2]

Eno's success spawned many competitors in both Great Britain and the United States, but Eno's fruit salts continued to be popular. As the pharmaceutical industry moved away from cure-all patent medicines in the mid 20th century, Eno Fruit Salt became one of the only surviving products of its kind.[8]:154 Currently owned by GlaxoSmithKline, Eno Fruit Salt is today sold as an antacid, and its main ingredients are now sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, and citric acid.[9][10] Its main market is in India.[11]

Personal life

Eno married Elizabeth Anne Cooke and they had a daughter, Amy.[4] Amy married Harold William Swithinbank. Their granddaughter Isobel Cripps was an overseas aid organizer, his great-granddaughter Peggy Cripps was a children's book author, and his great-great-grandson Kwame Anthony Appiah is a professor of philosophy at Princeton.[5]

Legacy

A ward in the Royal Victoria Infirmary was known for a time as the J.C. Eno Ward.[2]

See also

Notes and references
  1. Different reliable sources give 1820, 1827, or 1828 as Eno's birth year. The earliest date is used here as most likely to be correct.
  2. Campbell, W. A. (June 1966) "James Crossley Eno and the Rise of the Health Salts Trade". University of Newcastle Upon Tyne Medical Gazette 60(3) (June 1966), p.350. Reprinted as an appendix to W. A. Campbell, The Analytical Chemist in Nineteenth Century English Social History, thesis presented for the degree of Master of Letters in the University of Durham. Newcastle upon Tyne, July 1971.
  3. Corley, T.A.B. "Eno, James Crossley (1827/28-1915), manufacturer of patent medicine". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 2004.
  4. "James Crossley Eno". Geni.
  5. Carolineld. "Eno's fruit salts, made in Hatcham". Caroline's Miscellany, June 1, 2009.
  6. Russell, edited by Colin A. (1999). Chemistry, society and environment : a new history of the British chemical industry. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 137. ISBN 9780854045990.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  7. Wilkins, Mira (2004). The history of foreign investment in the United States, 1914-1945. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674045187.
  8. Crellin, John K. (2004). A social history of medicines in the twentieth century : to be taken three times a day (Reprint. ed.). New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press. ISBN 9780789018458.
  9. "Eno's Fruit Salt". The Quack Doctor. 17 July 2009.
  10. "Eno - Summary of Product Characteristics at eMC". Electronic Medicines Compendium. Retrieved 2 September 2016. Last updated 1 January 2016
  11. Srinavasan, R. "Pass Me the Fruit Salts". BusinessLine, May 9, 2012.


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