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2-3/8" x 4" Refrigerator magnet of lithographed pamphlet promoting Horsford's Acid Phosphate, "FOR INDIGESTION, NERVOUSNESS, PHYSICAL & MENTAL EXHAUSTION."
Originally printed by the Knapp Lithography printing company of New York.
Horsford's Acid Phosphate tonic was patented in 1868 and manufactured until the early 1940s. A teaspoon of the product, mixed with sugar and water, was promoted as a tasty beverage to cure various ailments.
Eben Norton Horsford (1818-1893) is commonly credited with having discovered baking powder.
After graduation from Poly Tech, Eben worked as a geologist, studied chemistry in Germany, and became a professor at Harvard. While at Harvard he concentrated on the chemistry of nutrition, studying potatoes and condensed milk, and endeavoring to find a substitute for yeast in baking bread (baking powder). He received his first patent for "pulverulent phosphoric acid" (baking powder) in 1856 and in 1861 linked up with George Wilson to form the Rumford Chemical Works. Wilson had been in the business of manufacturing chemicals for the textile industry and one of Horsford's early patents was a bleach neutralizer for cottons & linens. With Horsford's chemistry and Wilson's equipment engineering expertise, the firm prospered.
Rumford Baking Powder is still sold, in the familiar red and black can.
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