James Crossley Eno

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

James Crossley Eno was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of James Eno and Elizabeth Eno, who kept a small general shop. 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.

At some point he met the Newcastle physician Dennis Embleton, who often prescribed an effervescent compound of sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. 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. 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. In 1868, he formally founded the company Eno's "Fruit Salt" Works.

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. He himself eventually settled in Dulwich, where he died at the age of 95.

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. 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. Its main market is in India.

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