From the old country, I was surprised to find that Zorritone is still being made.
Yep, that name came from the foul taste of the allegedly effective cough syrup, I remember that ads in my youth reported that the medicine was made with natural elements like eucalyptus, mint and a bit of -mercifully- artificial skunk glands extract. :eek:
I still think to this day that it was very effective reverse marketing (with a taste like that, it **should **be effective!) or the grandmothers and parents figuring out that kids with annoying coughs would be quiet as they would know that making a lot of noise would mean that the gross spoonful was coming. A good number though reported that it was effective for them.
I dont think the folks who produced it were willing to go through whatever required tests would have allowed them to stay on the market (so I was told) (could be bullshit).
Honestly, as bad as that stuff was, I think some of the hideously flavored-over concoctions (the berry-flavored pre-colonoscopy stuff, the cherry-flavored cough syrup) are worse.
Berry flavor my ass. That stuff is the vilest. I didn’t mind the results nearly as much as the taste of the evil concoction.
Tried it. Didn’t help. I swear I could taste it all the way down my throat. Sucking on lime slices only muted the horror a little. I really don’t want to do this again.
To be fair to Buckley’s their tagline is “It tastes awful. And it works.” You can’t say they didn’t warn you.
Banana-flavoured medicine sticks out in my memory as the worst I’d ever have to take. Honestly, I actually remember how my family made a big deal about it being an awful flavour for years afterwards more than I remember the actual taste.
Anything cherry flavored. As a child, whenever I was sick, I had to take some kind of cherry flavored medicine…apparently the only flavor that existed? To this day, I get sick if I taste that cherry/menthol mix.
Did it have a metallic aftertaste? My old boss said one of his kids had to take something that did (yes, he tasted it to see if the child had a good reason to fuss about it) and it was a now-obsolete antibiotic with the brand name Prostaphlin (aka cloxacillin). He said it smelled good, and tasted good at first until the aftertaste kicked in.
DMSO goes right through your skin. That’s why some people use it for their own arthritis.
I’ve made metronidazole suspension. You’re right - the dust is disgusting. It gets into your sinus cavities, too. That’s nothing compared to verapamil. You can’t even see airborne verapamil dust, but hoo boy can you feel it! Cipro dust isn’t pleasant either, although they’ve since come out with a liquid formulation.
I had never heard of it, so I Googled it, and one of the English-language links says it has a “soothing, mildly refreshing menthol taste.” That says enuff!
In the old days, medicines were deliberately made to taste bad because people believed that the worse they tasted, the better they worked. That may be feasible for adults, but try to get something foul-tasting down a kid. Good luck!
You are correct re: terpin hydrate. It’s actually a derivative of turpentine; stories about people in the old days using turpentine as cough syrup aren’t an urban legend.
When I worked at the grocery store, we usually recommended that people get the unflavored dynamite and use Crystal Light as the flavoring - after they’ve poured it into a glass. If you dump Crystal Light into the jug, you’re kind of stuck with it. What really freaked people out was that it often came out the other end smelling exactly like it did when it was drunk. (No, I haven’t done this fun thing yet.) We heard many times that the lemon-lime that came with the jug was the least unpleasant, and the pineapple flavoring was the very worst.
This is the story line of a movie or TV show I saw recently. It was a board meeting in a big conference room where the company is trying to make their medicine appeal to kids, but the consultant says “no, make it taste terrible, because it’s the adults that buy it”. I can’t recall what show it was - any ideas?
When I was just a very young man…like 5. The doctor prescribed the nastiest tasting syrup you could possibly imagine.
You know how plastic smells? The plastic they use in the manufacture of baby dolls. The smell that will just take your breath away and make you gag…like a new shower curtain?
That is how this medicine tasted. Like fresh plastic, It was well worse then the malady…which escapees my memory, permanently.
This was a long time ago. it was so long ago, that the doctor actually came to the house…yea I have been around a while.
But I still remember Dr Palmisano and his bag of very nasty elixirs.
I was in the hospital for surgery. They wanted to give me iron pills. I told them I had difficulty swallowing pills, so they gave me liquid iron. Now that was some truly nasty tasting stuff! (I have since learned to swallow pills without difficulty:D)
With respect, no, that is just wrong. Bitter is bitter, and people know how to deal with it; nasty fake fruity flavoring is just so unpleasant and unnatural every cell in the tongue revolts. The only possible reason for that nasty fake sweetness is to confuse the gag reflex of children six and under, and believe me they remember and hate the flavor for the rest of their lives.
Give me crisp, honest bitterness anytime.
(I don’t know if I’m talking about medicine or friends now.)
Yellow Triaminic was the first thing I thought of. The red was worse, but I don’t think it was common. My Mom once gave me a double dose of the orange because she didn’t believe me when I told her I’d just taken it five minutes earlier. Do they even make it any more? Maybe the memories were so traumatic that I didn’t see it when searching out cold medicine for my own kids.
I kind of liked the smell, but I couldn’t imagine swallowing a spoonful of that stuff, which isn’t made any more. It was deliberately given an unpleasant flavor to discourage its abuse (like an addict is going to care).
and use Crystal Light as the flavoring - after they’ve poured it into a glass. If you dump Crystal Light into the jug, you’re kind of stuck with it. What really freaked people out was that it often came out the other end smelling exactly like it did when it was drunk. (No, I haven’t done this fun thing yet.) We heard many times that the lemon-lime that came with the jug was the least unpleasant, and the pineapple flavoring was the very worst.