The Ingredients For Bgo Cream Made By Calotabs Co Of Greenville Sc (Page 2)
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I am looking for the ingredients of BGO made by Calotabs Co of Greenville, SC years ago. My jar has long been worn smooth and can't read it.

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Jocelyn,
I got the email notice of your message and clicked on the link, and inadvertently looked at Harry's original question thinking it was the new post, and I replied to it. I will now reply to your message. I spent a number of hours researching BGO and Beeman's today and found a little. Beeman's Laboratories started selling BGO and BQR on January 22, 1931. In 1944, the president was a Eugene A. Rush and I could find nothing on him. I did just find an 1899 lawsuit against Ohio Dr. Edward Eugene Beeman (b. 3/27/1839, d. 11/6/1906 - he was adopted by a Julius Beeman), who invented Beeman's gum:
This action was brought by Edward E. Worthington, the plaintiff in error, against Edward E. Beeman, the defendant in error, and others not served with process, who, it is alleged, had been partners in business at Cleveland, Ohio, under the firm name of the Beeman Chemical Company, in the manufacture and sale of pepsin gum.
I would think if Beeman formed his company under the name Beeman Chemical Company, he would not call it Beeman Laboratory, Inc. in Atlanta. This would imply to me that there is no direct connection between Beeman's gum and Beeman's Laboratory in Atlanta. But I can find nothing as to where Beeman's Laboratory came from. Dr. Beeman invented his gum in 1879
And I found his obit:
DR. E.E. BEEMAN DEAD,; Chewing Gum King Gave Up Medicine to Become a Manufacturer
CLEVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 6. -Dr. Edwin E. Beeman, who was known as the "Chewing Gum King," died here early this morning. He has been afflicted with paralysis for several years. Twenty-five years ago Dr. Beeman gave up practice of medicine here for the manufacture of chewing gum. It was said that the idea of combining pepsin with gum was suggested to him by a young women who worked in a newsstand where he bought gum, and that he always took good care of her after he made millions.
Dr. Beeman often said that the success for his business was due in great measure to his advertising campaign. Everywhere was the picture of Dr. Beeman with the words telling the virtues of pepsin gum. He took into partnership W. J. White, now of New York. Dr Beeman sold out his chewing gum interests several years ago.

His gravemarker says simply "Edward E. Beeman"

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Hey Laurie,
Thanks for your kind comments about BGO. BGO first came out on January 22, 1931, made by Beeman’s Laboratory, Inc. in Atlanta. In 1944, Eugene A. Rush, President, and his wife, Katie, Vice President and I found a Eugene A. Rush who earned a degree in Pharmacy from Brooklyn in 1910 so maybe that was the one who came up with BGO and started Beeman’s Laboratories. We lived in Atlanta during the fifties and my dad, who owned the Calotabs Company (Calotabs was a laxative - looked like a white M&M), acquired Beeman’s Laboratories in mid fifties. We moved to Daytona Beach in 1958 and my dad retired in 1975, selling the company to a Charles S. Bell, of Greenville, SC. I believe that is when BGO went from a brown, glass jar to a white plastic one. We did not manufacture BGO ourselves but farmed that duty out to some company that does that sort of thing so when the company moved from city to city, it continued to be manufactured elsewhere. BGO’s sister product, BQR (Beeman’s Quick Relief - almost 10% alcohol), a cold remedy, we did the bottling ourselves and I worked on the production line during the summer of 1962, and I still use as an Inbox a wooden container that we used to move the bottles of BQR from station to station. I have no idea if the manufacturer of BGO ever changed. I remember in the late fifties or early sixties, we created a new formula that had air whipped into the BGO and it was amazingly light and smooth, disappearing into the skin very quickly, but unfortunately it no longer worked, so we never put that formulation into production. Thanks for your interest.

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Wow!! I would give anything to get a bottle of BGO. So funny to see how many people used it. I grew up in the 70s as a teen in Alabama and it was the only thing that worked on breakouts (zits). But the bottle my mother gave me was the brown glass jar and it only took a little so i assume she had that jar for a long time and it lasted forever. It was also a beige color and would help cover up blemishes while healing. I have never found anything else like it and when my daughter was a teen, I had wished so many times I had some to help with her blemishes. Must have been a more southern known ointment.

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To Harry - see Relpy # 3 below.

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My thinking is that he had a partner and he probably continued keeping the name that was already set up.

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I enjoyed your comments on BGO. Such always reminds me of back when we were making it and simpler times.

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Thank you for posting your information about BGO! I have thought of it often as it was the BEST "drawing salve" back in the 50's and 60's. BGO came up in a conversation I had with my daughter today (6/16/13), so I had to look it up. I'd wondered what had happened to it since I hadn't seen it for years. Thanks again for the information and memories of a great product..."they" just d!on't make things like "they" used to...what a shame!

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If your Beeman died in 1931, maybe others continued with the company and in 1946, it put out BGO. I can't believe there would be two Beeman Laboratory's in Atlanta at the same time.

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I appreciate your information. Since this afternoon I finally found that "my" A. E. Beeman was Aulda Edward Beeman born 4 Mar 1885 died 18 May 1931 in Nashville, Davidson Co., TN according to his Death Certificate. His wife indicated Aulda was born in NC, but so far I haven't located him any where. Maybe there was more than one Beeman Lab - the one that has A. E. as V-P was in Atlanta in the City Directory for 1929. Have a good week-end. Thanks again.

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According to Wikipedia, Beeman's Gum was created by a Edward E. Beeman back in the 1800's and it continued until 1978. I don't think that Beeman was in any way connected to the Beeman's Laboratories that made BGO and BQR. BGO was started in 1946 but I found a mention of Beeman's Laboratorys in Atlanta in the 1941 Federal Trade Commission report saying they were "Misrepresenting therapeutics value and failing to disclose harmful potentialities: medicinal preparations." Which would indicate the Beeman's that made BGO was in business before 1946 when it introduced BGO. I have no other info about the company or who founded it.

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I do genealogy and my father, 1910-1971, said his sister md. Dr. A. E. Beeman. He was a bunch of years older than she - her being born ca 1911 and Dr. Beeman ca 1889. I located a marriage license for him and Billie Brabham (Willie Lou Brabham) date Apr 1931 in TN. I have Aunt Willie Lou's obit in Oct 1931 which indicated she died in Augusta, GA and was the widow of Dr. A. E. Beeman. Today looking in Ancestry I located A. E. Beeman as V-Pres. and Candler P. Lasseterm /Sec-Tres. Lab appears to have been in Lynn Fort, 290 Angier Av., NE, but A. E. lived on 793 Pryor NW. Did this company have anything to do with Beeman Chewing Gum?

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Be sure to have those six jars of BGO added to your homeowners policy in case someone breaks in and steals them. Where did you say you live????

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I also purchased a case back in the early 90's and still have 6 bottles left, like you, I am VERY stingy in even letting people know that I have any left. Never guessed that others would be looking for this item!!! Guess I'll leave a bottle to each grand child in my will.....lol

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Thanks for your comments. I'm not familiar with why the people who bought the company from us let it go out of business but I expect they just couldn't compete with brand names who have huge advertising budgets. We used to advertise in Grit and give pharmacists little paper bags with our ads on them for them to put people's prescriptions in.

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BGO was the best - I have had several pharmacists try to duplicate it and they just can't quite get it right

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It occurred to me in order to make something like BGO, you need the quantities of the ingredients and I just did a search to see of there was a patent on the formula but all I found was the trademark registration back in 1946. It was made by Beeman's Laboratory, Inc., but my father bought the company back in the fifties, and sold it around 1975, and we never made BGO ourselves but had it made. We did package BGO's sister product BQR (Beeman's Quick Relief), a cold remedy, and I worked in the plant during the summer of '62, between semesters in college. I have right next to me a varnished plywood box, approximately 14" x 11" that we would put the bottles of BQR, once they were filled, capped and labeled. Then we could stack them, then once the run for the day was bottled, we sat around and put them in the boxes with the insert. Once that was done, we would open up and do one end of the BQR boxes for the next day, tossing them in huge cardboard boxes about 3' square. We could do about 3,000 bottles a day, so we had a number of those 3' square boxes filled with BQR boxes closed at the bottom. There were about three or four of us doing this. We also packaged Calotabs (a laxative that looked like a white M&M) and Dr. Blosser’s Cigarettes (using a cigarette tube making machine made in the 1800's). We tried improving the formula for BGO, and experimented with a version that had air whipped into it. It went on very smooth, disappeared into the skin but didn't work as well as the original so we abandoned that. As I write this, the smells of the BGO, BQR and the Blosser's Cigarettes come back to me. My dad and I made a ton of those plywood boxes used in the production of BQR and I use this last remaining one as an Inbox. The BQR liquid would arrive in 55-gallon drums.

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For BGO's ingredients , see my post of 2/1/12

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I've been looking for it forever. If you could give more details about the ingredients I'll be glad to pay a compound pharmasist to whip some up. For privacy you may send it to me at xxxxx@xxx {edited for privacy}. it was a great product.

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I live in Greenville SC and bought, what I was told was the last remaining case around 1993. I still have some left, but use it like gold. We also have the old brown bottle that you mentioned (empty). II had to laugh when I saw all these post. I thought we were the only ones that kept our BGO in a safety deposit box!

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I don't know how old your jar of BGO (Beeman's Greaseless Ointment) is, but my father owned the company from the mid 1950s until 1975, when he retired and sold the company, and it moved from Daytona Beach to Greenville, SC. As you probably have guessed, it is out of business now.

If your jar is white plastic with red lettering and a white metal cap, it was made after 1975 in Greenville, SC by the gentleman who bought the company from us. If your jar is brown glass with a black metal cap, and white label with black lettering with some red highlights, it was pre 1975. We also sold it in white tubes with back and yellow lettering, and I have tube that has never been opened

When I was 15 in the late '50s, I discovered it would shine chrome, but I don't remember by dad being all that impressed.

I checked the ingredients between what we had in it and what it had in it out of NC and the ingredients are exactly same, and are as follows:

Idoform, Salicylic Acid, Sulfur (Precipitated), Zinc Oxide, 1%, Phenol(Liquified), Calamine, Menthol, Petrolatum, Lanolin, and Mineral Oil.
I found a thing on the internet saying a good substitute for BGO is Calmoseptine ointment available at Walgreens.

Their website is: calmoseptine.com

Hope this helps.

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