Tums
Tums is a brand of antacid made of sucrose and calcium carbonate manufactured by Haleon in St. Louis, Missouri, US. They are also available in a sugar-free version. It is an over-the-counter drug, available at many retail stores, including drug stores, grocery stores and mass merchandisers. It provides relief from heartburn and indigestion.
History
In 1928, James Harvey "Jim" Howe, a pharmacist in St. Louis, Missouri, developed Tums in the basement of his home while treating his wife's indigestion. The remedy caught on, and commercial production began in 1930 by the Lewis-Howe Company, which took its name from Howe and his uncle, A. H. Lewis, who was a pharmacist in Bolivar, Missouri; Howe worked in his uncle's drugstore as a teenager. Tums were named in 1930 after a radio contest, which was won by a nurse who came up with the phrase "Tums for the Tummy."In 1978 the company was purchased by Revlon of New York, making it no longer a St. Louis–based company. Revlon's Norcliff Thayer unit oversaw the Tums brand. Revlon spun Norcliff Thayer off to the British Beecham Group in 1986, and Beecham eventually became GlaxoSmithKline through a series of mergers.
Since 1930, a plant originally built by Lewis-Howe in downtown St. Louis has been making the antacid tablets. The factory complex remains the main manufacturing site for Tums, and GlaxoSmithKline completed millions of dollars' worth of renovations and modernizations during the 2000s.