Garum dysentery, and ulcers, and to ease chronic diarrhea and treat constipation. Garum was even used as an ingredient in cosmetics and for removal of unwanted hair and freckles. The biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell suggests that garum may have helped spread fish tapeworms across Europe. Garum is believed to be the ancestor of the fermented anchovy sauce "colatura di alici", still produced in Campania, Italy. Worcestershire is a savory sauce based upon fermented anchovies and other ingredients. Ketchup, originally a savory fish sauce that did not contain either sugar or tomatoes, shared its origins, culinary functions and popularity with garum. Garum
Fish sauce "kecap" in Indonesia might be the precursor of ketchup. By 50–100 BC, demand for fish pastes in China had fallen drastically, with fermented bean products having become a major trade commodity. Fish sauce, however, developed massive popularity in Southeast Asia. Food scholars traditionally divide East Asia into two distinct condiment regions, separated by a bean-fish divide: Southeast Asia, mainly using fermented fish (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia) and Northeast Asia, using mainly fermented beans (China, Korea, Japan). Fish sauce re-entered China in the 17th and 18th centuries, brought from Vietnam and Cambodia by Chinese traders up the coast of the southern provinces