Hmmm, looks like they still make it, but it’s been years since I’ve seen a bottle: Formula 666 Cold Medicine. My mother used to give that stuff to me and my brother when we were kids, for several reasons, I guess. First off, it tasted vile, so Mom knew we were really sick and not faking it if we agreed to take that crap. Second, it worked (sort of. IIRC, one of the ingredients of the old formulation was castor oil or something similar. You might have wanted to cough, but you were afraid to!) And finally, because my mother was a sadist.
Yeah, of course we referred to that stuff as The Cough Medicine of the Beast.
I remember the headache powder Stanback from when I was a kid in the 40s. All the drugstores had advertising signs reading “Snapback With Stanback”. I haven’t seen it in years. Do they still make it?
Do they still make cough drops? Vicks, Ludens, and the Smith Brothers were the big three when I was a kid. They were sold at the candy counter.
I haven’t seen Stanback in years, (my Pawpaw used to take them) but you can get BC Powder, which is basically the same thing. And yup I have a bag of Vick’s cough drops at home.
And speakling of Smith Brothers cough drops, they used to come in three flavors: the original licorice, cherry, and honey. We used to buy the licorice under the theory that anything that tasted this bad must be good for you. Smith Brothers and Ludens were 5 cents a box, Vicks was ten cents. We thought only rich people bought Vicks.
Don’t know if this was used in the US, but when I was a kid if you had rashes, got a lot of mozzie bites, etc in a bath of Condy’s Crystals you would go. Don’t stay in too long unless you want purple skin
Went looking for some a year or so ago, and not only could I not find any, but the younger pharmacy attendents just looked at me strange when I asked for Condy’s Crystals.
Yeah, by all means, let’s remove these time-tested harmless remedies and substitute things that will be discovered to cause all kinds of catastrophic side effects after they’ve been on the market for a couple of years.
I believe in the Old Days, constipation was thought to be the root cause of all the evils and woes of the world. Hell, maybe it is.
You mean there was a bottle of opium tincture in the first-aid cabinet at your job? Wow. IIRC in my state (California), everything except band-aids and adhesive tape was removed from workplace “medicine cabinets”, even aspirin and those chalky-tasting “Eez” throat lozenges; this all happened some time around 1990. I always imagined it was for insurance reasons.
Sure they do, but it’s hard to find ones that contain any actual medication, other than menthol or eucalyptus to coat the throat. But there are DXM ones if you look hard enough.
I’m in CA, and the last job I worked at (left in 2008) we had tons of stuff in the medicine cabinet: Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, Tums, cough drops, Midol, etc. in addition to bandages and Neosporin.
When I was in high school in the 60’s (a Catholic girls’ school), the principal’s secretary had a big bottle of aspirin in her desk and you could pretty much go up there any time and get a couple if you needed to.
If you really want something fixed, go for Fukitol. I use it recreationally myself.
Belladonna atropa - aka deadly nightshade - contains the anticholinergics atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine, among other things. They can cause hallucinations and delirium. In higher doses, Belladonna can put you in a coma and flog your heart into v-fib, thereby doing you in unless someone is standing over you with a defibrillator. They also increase heart rate, dilate pupils, bronchodilate, dry secretions, and slow GI motility (and decrease nausea), things that are useful in certain circumstances but can be bad in others. Of course, with an herbal product, you don’t know exactly what dose you are getting, and it may vary from batch to batch unless there is constant testing performed.
I think Donnatal - which is those three anticholinergics with a barbiturate - is still available by prescription, but don’t quote me on that. It was at one point commonly used for GI problems as an anti-spasmodic and such, but for the most part it has been supplanted by individual drug preparations, synthetic anticholinergics (e.g., ipratropium and glycopyrrolate), and even other classes of drugs entirely.
Spectre of Pithecanthropus- I’m pretty sure the homeopathic Belladonna, being homeopathic, doesn’t contain any actual Belladonna.
My grandmother believes in: Cod Liver Oil and Malt: as a general tonic- it actually tastes ok. Kaolin and morphine: for diarrhoea
Milk of Magnesia: for being too boisterous, looking “peaky” and any other bloody excuse she could think of.
My father believes in Andrews liver salts: for hangovers, heartburn and general intestinal unhappiness.
I took Aulin (Nimesulide) for pain in my foot I developed after walking around on a fractured metatarsal for at least a week.* I went from agony to a deep and peaceful sleep in about 15 minutes- that stuff is magic, but has been subsequently banned in Ireland and the UK.
*In my defence, I didn’t know it was broken because it wasn’t that bad. Then I woke up with a swollen foot, unable to weight bear and the only trauma had been twisting my foot 10 days beforehand while dancing at my wedding. I was told at first it was plantar fasciitis-then a repeat xray showed new callous formation around a small break. Apparently my body finally decided that enough was enough, but only after a week walking around Venice on honeymoon. My husband thinks that I was too happy and in love to notice the pain until we got home. I disagree.
