When my brother and sister and I were kids, our parents used over-the-counter medications on us, which have since disappeared. We apparently used codeine before it was restricted to prescrfption dispensation. We used asthmador (a brown powder, burned in a cardboard container in a room to open breathing passages in the throat and lungs), and Turpin Hydrate, as a cold medicine. Any of the Teeming Millions remember these or any other discontinued medicines? (Some people still use cod-liver oil–ugh!)
sulfanilamide
gentian violet
Q: what’s milk of magnesia for?
Mercurochrome, the orange stingy-stuff painted on scratches and cuts.
There’s a column by Cecil about Mercurochrome here.
My mother-in-law still has an old bottle in her medicine cabinet.
In our family mom doled it out for indegestion, heartburn, or constipation.
It’s a laxative.
A: What ails ya.
mmm
The bigger question is how do you milk a magnesia?
I see they still make Boroleum on Fishers Island, NY – part of my home town, but impossible to drive to without leaving the state and taking two ferries. I don’t know the economics, but all raw materials have to shipped in by ferry, and the final result has to be shipped out. Somehow they’ve been managing for over a century.
There’s also Save the Baby, which has been supplanted by Vicks Vap-O-Rub.
Fletcher’s Castoria. My grandmother was firm believer in dosing children with the stuff for any and all ailments. For the record, I don’t remember it tasting like root beer or being particularly gentle in its action. The linked page notes that the stuff isn’t easy to find any more. Good.
Then there’s Serutan. I think it’s a fiber additive. Me mum used to take it all the time. I tried it and it tasted like pelleted cardboard… 
Turpin hydrate, is still available as a prescription. It was very popular in Viet Nam, or so I hear. Known a GI gin.
And, remember, Serutan spelled backward . . . .
Carter’s Little Liver Pills had to drop the “Liver” years ago; they’re now Carter’s Pills – a laxative.
Milk of magnesia is an antacid as well as a laxative. It’s still sold, as far as I can tell, and I was able to find some the last time I bought some, which was a few years ago.
I saw cod liver oil for sale at a CVS (big pharmacy chain) in Fairfax, Virginia recently. I always thought of it as a dietary supplement, not a drug. What is it used to treat?
What she needs is a Balsam Specific.
Ayds, an appetite-suppressant.
I thought Serutan was the Wizard of Isinglass.
Rauwolfia extract for both psychosis and hypertension!
LOL…I still remember the commercials. “Why take diet pills when you can enjoy AYDS”…Classic.
Here is a link to one…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7935064058166993925#
It’s a dietary supplement for Vitamins A and D that was used before milk was routinely fortified with them, since lack of those vitamins can cause Rickets.
Mercurochrome didn’t sting. Merthiolate did. Both were made with mercury compounds: merbromin and thimerosal, respectively.
Gentian Violet is still around, although you have to ask for it at the pharmacy counter. It’s still used for thrush, although it’s not FDA-approved for it. Fletcher’s Laxative is around as well, or was when I worked retail pharmacy about a year ago.
Mercurochrome has been reformulated to Mercuroclear. Old people don’t trust it. 