I have a lot of "exciting and unusual " historical subs on Reddit and here’s one that I found… I knew the 1800s had some doozies but I’ve never seen this one before
here’s a medical journal discussing the same subject
Well, at least it’s less than 1% ABV, so it’s safe for children.
And “skillfully combined”.
I love the comment that says the daytime formula had coke in it… But seriously, I have no doubt that stuff stopped your coughing.
Perhaps permanently.
Wonder what other ingredients were “skilfully
combined” in the formula. Laudanum? Mercury?
The Healthline article mentions guaifenesin, used in modern cough meds to bring up phlegm. However its ineffectiveness as an expectorant has been demonstrated.
I would be wary of ingesting chloroform* but cannabis, alcohol and morphine sulphate seem OK in small doses.
Probably better than the DXM (dextromethorphan) found in cough syrup in the 1970s.
* choroform oxidises into phosgene (aka carbonyl chloride), infamously used as poison gas in WW1
Not that this knowledge actually stopped me from huffing chloroform, but I am much, much older now.
It’s still there.
Chloroform? 
I think DXM is illegal where I live, but I have only bought cough syrup for kids in the last 10 or more years - so I have a careful look at the ingredients. It could be still in the adult versions.
Glad to report, none contained chloroform.
The cough syrup I have has it (US), labeled for adults only (over 12 years of age).
A Cochrane review had the following conclusion:
“There is no good evidence for or against the effectiveness of OTC medicines in acute cough.” That includes dextromethorphan, though some other studies have been favorable.
Oddly, opiates and opioid medications can actually cause cough. This is said to happen through stimulation of histamine release.
When you knock the kid out with chloroform, you can steal back the allowance money.
Idiot! Those are Colorforms!
The main difference is that in the 1970’s you could get cough syrup with codeine in it instead; which had the advantage that it actually worked.
Theoretically, you can still get it; but it’s now prescription, is likely to come mixed with something that doesn’t work, and any attempt to get a bottle to have on hand in case you wake up with a bad cold in the middle of the night would probably instead get you labeled as drug-seeking and prevent you from ever being able to get the stuff at all. So instead, if you do get a horrible cough and can’t sleep, you need to go that night without sleeping; call the doctor the next day, barely able to talk, and explain that no the OTC stuff doesn’t work; and, if you live alone, drive into town in that condition in order to pick up a prescription that’s still likely to be mostly the stuff that doesn’t work.
(Yes, I know even low-dose codeine screws some people up. I am not one of those people.)
Codeine and hydrocodone syrups sure stop the cough, but for me that is a seriously trippy “sleep.” And when they wear off, they wear off with a vengeance. From no cough to hacking up a lung in 15 minutes. Luckily I haven’t been sick since the start of the pandemic.
That’s part of what I meant by ‘screw some people up’. I never had either effect; nor did it make me groggy. And I never felt like taking more after the cough got better, either.
All of those are possible negative side effects; but a lot of people never get any of them. I don’t know what percentage do get the side effects, though.
That lower case “m” is for minim, which is basically a drop, which was enough to maybe give it the scene of chloroform, and as for the morphine, that translates into 1.35 milligrams per teaspoonful, which is basically a homeopathic dose.
This label pops on on Facebook all the time, and I’ve always wondered what those “other ingredients” were. It does appear to be a genuine concoction, from the early 1930s.
I take codeine cough medicine. Yes, i have a bottle lying around. I don’t take it very often. I find it is moderately effective. I take it because the one time i took dextromethorphan it made me miserable. I had disphoria and dissociation. I couldn’t concentrate enough to work, i couldn’t sleep, and i felt miserable. It worked really well on the cough, though. Better than codeine.
But codeine it’s slightly euphoric, and the effects are mild enough that i can work, play decent bridge, and otherwise function on it. It also doesn’t prevent me from sleeping. So even though it doesn’t stop the cough quite as well as dextromethorphan, it’s a much better choice. Anyway, after i described my experience with dextromethorphan, my doctor wrote me a prescription for codeine.
Mostly i just take guaifenesin and drink licorice tea. I find both loosen my phlegm. (Lots of people swear by honey, but it does nothing good for me.) Weirdly, i tried the guaifenesin pills once, and they didn’t do anything for me. But i think the syrup helps.
It’s interesting how different people are. Dextromethorphan just doesn’t do anything to me at all. Codeine really stops the cough.
When I was a kid my cough drops contained Ammonium Chloride (I used to read labels a lot). At an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History I noticed that a container of ammonium chloride was packed into the medical kit of an arctic exploration team. It was used – surprise-- for coughs. It’s an expectorant and apparently works by irritating mucosa and causing fluids to be exuded, the theory being that this will break up the phlegm.
I notice that the same cough drops no longer contain ammonium chloride (I still read labels). Now they’ve got pectin or other gelatinous agents to soothe throats. I thought that perhaps they’d found some harmful effect of ammonium chloride, but I can’t find anything online. Apparently they’re just trying to keep kids from OD’ing on AC by replacing it with something they can eat lots of.