Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Vicks

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Justin takes over Sawbones researching duties from Dr. Sydnee this week as he begins profiling the unsung heroes of business: Brands. In this inaugural attempt, he’ll present the story of Vicks and how the company’s VapoRub took over the world. Also: The puzzling truth about NyQuil’s name.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones, a Meryl Tour of Miscite and Medicine. for the mouth. Wow, it's amazing. Hello everybody, and welcome to Solbone's

a Meryl Tour of Miscited Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McRoye. And I'm Sydney McRoye. And I'm so excited and nervous and a little bit excited and as excited and scared, isn't it nice to know a lot? And a little bit not. That's right, I did the research for this week's solbones to give Sydney into the woods. Oh, into the woods. Sorry. Answer right. It wasn't a

very good rendition. No, no, I'm with you now. It just took me a minute to follow where you were. Sydney was real busy saving the world this week and she said, J man, in my hour of need, can you please come through for me and help me to, and research an episode, please I'm begging, I'm on my hands and these begging. And Justin was like, but I don't know anything about medicine. There's only one thing that I love more than anything else, more than you, my wife. Just not trying to say that.

And that's brands. Boy, do I love brands and love, love interacting with them on social media. I love the different products and everything. And I thought, you know what? They have Arby's themed swim trunks for sale now, if you like those. Who are you telling? The audience.

Oh, how do you know that? Because you own them. Okay, there we go. All right, good. I was hoping you weren't telling me because you've seen me in the Arby's Trunks, and I can't imagine that's in it, which is easily wiped away by time. I only know about the Arby's Trunks because you own them.

I thought that I would tell everyone, and you would then jump in and be like, I already have a pair, and they're the meatiest. I don't know. Ew. Oh, they're real meaty. No, I wanted to celebrate brands. We're always talking about medicine and achievements

and illness and in my head I'm like, but where are the brands? Right. So I wanted to do, it was originally gonna be an episode where I celebrated a bunch of different brands because we've been watching this show called Through the Build America and it's this amazing

like super gravitas mixed with like, and this is how he made lays potato chips. You'll never believe the story behind Campbell's soup. Everybody, it always vacillates between a very frustrated young business person who's trying to make it. And then the same business person celebrating by drinking a glass of whiskey in their office and then being frustrated again

and then celebrating with more whiskey. There's reenactments. So like, there's reenactments. So like, as time passes and they get wealthier and wealthier and their business because more successful, they don't ever change offices. They just like shoot it from like different- Or close, they don't change offices.

Sometimes they'll get a big fake mustache, like I'm an older man now, and I'm still making camel soup. Out of this office in this suit, with the same outfit. Glass of whiskey. That's always a big feature. I never get to drink whiskey in my office.

Yeah, well, that has something to do with your... My line of work, sure. So I was gonna do an all, it was like a complete retrospective on brands. And then the first brand that I thought of, I just kept finding more stuff that was like, that's pretty interesting. I do not have, this is not gonna be like a typical sawbounds

where we're having like an arc as much, like a historical arc, will be vaguely chronological. Okay. Fair, but we're, but it's gonna be more of a survey. Mm-hmm. Just an exploration. Yes.

Sydney, today we're going to be talking about VIX. Oh, okay. I know VIX. Yeah, you think, you just think you know Vix. Yeah, you think, you just think you know Vix. The Vix product I'm most familiar with is Vapo Rub. Okay, good. Because when I was little and I would have a cold,

my mom would put Vix Vapo Rub on a hankerchief, like a cloth hankerchief, and have me hold it and breathe it in. Like a, like an old-timey kidnapper with chloroform on there, right? That same person. Well, but she wouldn't like put it over my face. Like she would just hand it to me. She would be in sweetie.

And I would like cuddle on the couch with my box chicken noodle soup and my archi comics and huff my... Huff her. Huff her. The store... The anchorchief. We're going to be talking about VIX VIX Barra a lot The story of VIX starts with Lunsford Richardson he was born in 1854 on a farm

And in North Carolina he went to a college called Davidson College graduated with with honors He married Mary Lynn Smith. They had kids called Davidson College, graduated with honors. He married Mary Lynn Smith. They had kids, H. Smith, Richardson, and a second son, Lundsford, Richardson, Lundy, Jr. Just a regular life so far. Regular life.

It also had three daughters, Lorenza, Mary Ann, and Janet L. According to. Now, do I have to memorize all these names? You've given me a lot of children's names. There will be a quiz. No, we're getting his like. I'm only going to remember.

This is not a, you have to remember. This is not a tortured character. I don't even know that his life is particularly that interesting, but he is at the heart of Vix. Okay. So we're going to talk about Lunds for Richardson. So he's working in Greensboro. He's working on different like home remedies and what have you.

And one of the products that he comes up with is, well, Vapourub, not called that at this time. He sells a lot of different things. And he's looking for an umbrella to put it under right. And he stumbles upon VIX. So his last name Richardson would not fit well on the label of the products right. But VIX would VIX is the last name of his brother-in-law who was a family physician who according to some accounts helped to give him some startup money, but also like was naming it, maybe just like, if you know about VIX, this physician, this is the VIX home remedies. There's also a very popular product called VIX seeds at

the time, and he was sort of like building on that idea. But mainly like his name, Winfellownlabel. And I think it kind of continued to get to him that it wasn't, you know, under his name, but Vix was short and was punchy. And pretty soon there were 21 different Vix family remedies, as they were called. So he comes up with, there's two different versions of the Vapourub story. Okay, there's the one that the Vix company tells you, and then there's another one. Okay.

So here is what the VIX website will tell you about the creation of April Rob. The VIX says, the product was created by Lunsford Richardson out of love and concern for his six son. Young Smith Richardson had a severe case of Croupe, which is what's in, what's that, what's Croupe? Croupe is a viral illness that kids get. It's caused by a virus that's a parat influenza. Next to next to

influenza in jace is different virus. So it's a viral illness. It's usually self limited, but sometimes you need some medications or some respiratory support to get through it. Kids still get it today. So this is so they say that the hit group and uh, lunch bird, Richardson combined unique ingredients into a salve that when heated by the body would release soothing vapors. And then it says on the website, the boy soon recovered. It's like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably would have recovered anyway. Yeah, boy. Now, there is a different version of this from McGill University professor named Joe Schwartz,

who claims that the product can be traced to Jules Benge, a French pharmacist who created. Benge. I'm guessing. Exactly, but his last name, BE in GUE. If you're wondering why it's called Benge, it's because his last name was Jules Bingeck. That's the name of the guy that graduated it.

Is that how you spell Binge, though, the product, right? BENG, hyphen, GAY. They wouldn't make it like Uber phonetic for the dumb dumb American. Well, that's because I think the average American speaking English would be ENG, E say, being you. So this is a menthol based product, not like vapor rub, but it was sold as a treatment for arthritis and gout and neural neural, neural, neural, like nerve pain. Okay. Alja, it hurts.

Neralgia, like nerve pain. Okay. Alja, it hurts. According to Joe Schwartz, accounting of this, Lundsford saw, heard from, he sold Ben Gay in his pharmacy, and he heard from his customers that it cleared their sinuses, which is not as intended purpose, but because of the menthol and he heard from them like, oh, this worked to clear my sinuses. So he basically like a version of Bingay, but using that is like the idea behind it.

And you know, who to maybe it was a little column A, little column B, you know, obviously the fixed website doesn't mention Bingay is like the the spiritual inspiration for this product, but that is that is one accounting of it. But they would never, you would never do that, though, with a lot of these products, because they're being sold not on the strength of their, like, the quality of the product necessarily, as much as the recognition and connotation. So you wouldn't want to build on another competitor, you know. He called this product Vicks Group and Nomonsouth, but you know what today obviously is as vapor rub, mainly marketed towards creepy babies.

It had men's thaw, which was a kind of new drug that was coming from Japan and it was incorporated into a ball with some other ingredients like camphor and things like that. Sure. And since it was only, it was popular in part because it was used externally. So there wasn't stomach upset, wasn't creating stomach problems for people. So they liked that. That was apparently one of the selling points of it is that it wasn't bothering your tummy like a lot of these other treatments wouldn't. Yeah.

Well, that makes a lot of sense if you consider that a lot of the remedies, so to speak, of the day, as we've talked about on the show, the way you would believe that they did anything is by making sure they did something, and so a lot of them would, you know, make you feel really sick or if you diarrhea or whatever, and then you knew like it's working. So in 1898, he sold the drug store and he started a wholesale drug company, at which he eventually sold that part to found VIX family remedies company. He wanted to just focus on that. Initially, they struggled to sell outside the Greensboro area, eventually the business change hands to Lunsford Sun who decided to just concentrate on VIX crew and pneumonia

self. But he renamed it, the Sun who, theoretically, the product was initially admitted for, renamed it to VapoRub. And focus on that. That's what he decided to focus the business on. How did he, like, when I think of like Vapo, vaporizer. Vapor, vapor, the vapor that the rub creates, you got vapor, got rub, it's vapor rub.

Okay. So that, and the name was his idea, he came up with the name. The product was still sort of struggling to get like the sort of like major success story that he wanted it to be, until in one year, it sales more than tripled to $2.9 million in sales. Can you guess what year that was, Sydney? What year are we in?

If I told you a year, we were. No, I mean, what time period are we in? I mean, like when did he first, when was this? He took over, this would have been like, he took the last year touched on the way I was 1905, he took over in 1905, or sorry, but shortly after that. 1918, 1919.

Exactly. But during the, the, The influenza pandemic. Exactly. It was a huge boon to that product, and it is really what set it on fire. But it was ubiquitous. Yeah.

And they built on the success of vapor rub. It's a shame because it probably did nothing for influenza. Well, yeah, I mean, while at that, get in the way of a good brand story, Sydney. You're not here to be a bummer. You feel it justinarily, just make fun jokes. I'm just saying, like not at the expense of brands.

A lot of people bought it, but it wouldn't have helped them. So we, to continue to follow the sort of VIX story, they continue to introduce new products after this. In 31, they sold cough drops that were in the, if you've ever seen the classic VIX logo where it's like the inverted triangle that's greenish. Yeah. It was a little point down at the end. That's the shape of the cough drops that they brought out. Triangular, huh? Yeah, all right.

And you wouldn't think of this as the most arid- Throw-no-dynamic. Well, it doesn't sound like it'd be pleasant in your mouth even. Yeah, in baseball angles. You wouldn't think, in 1952 cough syrup was added to the mix. In 1959, they came out with Synex nasal spray,

and in 1966, Nike will hit the market. We're gonna zoom back in on some of those products. Nike will. Mm-hmm. So in 1930s, they merged with the William S. Merrill Chemical Company to form Richardson Merrill. And that was the name of the company for quite some time, Richardson Merrill.

Obviously not using the VIX thing, just focusing on, you know, these, the, we want to get his last name in there at least. Right. Somewhere. VIX kind of became synod, because of these products, kind of became synonymous with, with colds, cold flu stuff. And they even in the 1940s started marketing the VIX plan to fight colds. So this is a strategy that they cooked up

for how they could fight colds. And I'll read this to you. This is from their vast experience, VIX medical advisors and scientists developed a simple home guide called VIX plan that proved it's real worth in tests made among 2,650 children under medical supervision. Reports show that it resulted in fewer colds, shorter colds, 50% less sickness from colds.

Now this tested VIX plan is ready for you to use in dealing with colds. Of course, VIX plan may do less for you and your family, or it may do more. More. No way. At a time like this, it is certainly worth trying in your own home. 250,000 kids. Oh, I thought you said 250,000. That'd be a heck of a study. Well, that's what I was going to say.

How did they get that? So, 2650 children, they tested this plan. Would you have the plan? What is the plan? I got the plan. Is it a three step plan? Do you have the. Would you have the plan? What is it? I got the plan. It's a three step plan. Do you have the, did you read the study? Did they publish the study? No, this is a newspaper ad I'm reading. So no, they didn't have this. Just trust us, there's a study. It was, it is implied. That's what I wanted. I'm wondering like, where is the study? Yeah. Well, I don't have the study. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, here's the plan. One, observe a few simple health rules.

Live normally. Avoid excesses. Live normally. Hold on. Don't be weird. Live normally. The first one is, don't be weird. Don't do weird stuff because we get a count for that.

Live normally. What does that mean? Live normally. Avoid excesses. Drink plenty of water. Keep elimination regular. That's huge if you wanna avoid colds. Keep elimination regular.

Keep elimination regular. As if I have a choice in that matter, like just like I'm deciding, come on. Well, you know, there are nutritional things you can do to stay regular. Get needed rest and sleep. Avoid crowds and people who have colds. Hey, got it.

Okay, that one's a good one. That's a good one. That's actually a good one. That's actually a good one. Yeah. When a cold threatens at the first warning sign, first sniffle or sneeze, use VIXVATERNAL as directed. VATERNAL.

Yes, VATERNAL. What was that? I don't know. Which of the products? I'll tell you about VIXVATERNAL. Sit, just slip those headphones on. Okay. Jackson, Mississippi, and the beautiful residential district,

hasn't suffered one bit from the California and Arizona snow's most sections of the country of Bengek. Even so, with all the changing temperatures, Mrs. Brown is troubled with a sniffly, snazzy head cold. But fortunately, she knows that today head cold's stuffiness can be relieved in seconds with VIXVATRONOL NOSDROPS. They work fast to bring soothing relief. Meanwhile downtown at his office Mr. Brown knows its good business to keep a bottle of VIXVATRONOL NOSDROPS handy. A few drops sue their rotation. Help to clear out congestion, bring relief in seconds.

Try a bit for all yourself. So as near as I can tell, Sid mainly like, looks like... Nose? Drop. Their nose drops, looks like similar, for what I was able to find, similar ingredients to what was in vapor rub, to sort of like intense, I believe like menthol and camphor, but you would take drops of it and just blast it right in there. You know, it's whole there.

I'm trying to find the ingredients in it. From what I could find here, menthol and camphor, were the... Those were the ingredients? Yes. Okay, probably wouldn't kill you. I don't know, that's true for a lot of these when it comes to, I mean, I don't want to knock on Vix too hard because when it comes to some of these like over the counter, cold sinus, whatever remedies, even today, a lot of them, it's like, well, they probably won't kill

you. We're going to get into more of that. And I love your judgment. If you could reserve it just a little bit till I finish my story about brands. So so vaginal step two, when I called threatens, but if you still get a cold even and even after you jam a vaginal apprentice, you use VIXV paper rub at bedtime. It's double action starts to work at once and keeps on working for hours and invites restful sleep. The first thing won't prevent a cold and this will not cure a cold, but carry on.

Then at the bottom it says full details of VIXplan in your package of VIX, if the miserable symptoms of a cold are not really promptly or if more serious trouble seems to threaten, call your family doctor right away. A reasonable plan, I feel like. You know what's hard about that plan? It is reasonable to say if you have like your traditional, and I'm gonna be very cautious how I couch this because we are living in COVID times. So everything, none of this applies currently. Everything's uncharted.

But generally in the past, if somebody said, I woke up this morning and I had a runny nose and a little bit of a cough and some congestion. And it sounded like a cold. I wouldn't advise them to rush immediately to their doctor or call their doctor right away, right? Like a lot of times for mild cold-like symptoms, you don't need to rush anywhere. Yeah, but it's... Now, I don't know that if you use these over-the-counter things, I don't know that it's necessary.

I think you could or you couldn't and it wouldn't really matter that much. But I do think like the idea that you don't need to for what seems like a mild cold under pre-pandemic conditions run to the doctor. I think that that is sound advice. Yes, but the problem is if VIX also has to do a little covering of their proverbial, but it's legally speaking. Like listen, go to your doctor, okay, we don't know what we're talking about.

I'm sorry, just kidding, just buy the vapor rub please. Just buy the vapor rub and then go to your doctor and get the vapor rub there. Cause back then, I bet you could have. I'm gonna tell you more fascinating facts about VIX, but first I need you to take a break with me and follow me to the building department. Let's go. Madison's the Madison's the Esquil in my car before the mouth.

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and me, Maddie Myers. You can find Triple click wherever you get your podcasts and listen at maximumfun.org. Bye. So some more quick hit stuff about this company, which at this point where we are currently, is Richardson Merrill. They made a push for a drug called Kevidon that I believe you talked about.

You are going to be developing into this aspect of this story in a later episode. It's where I'm going to dwell on it too much. Do you mean just name what that is? It's the litamine. It's the litamine. We've gotten lots of requests to do an episode on that. So we'll be revisiting that. That's a whole episode worth of material.

Vicks formula 44, that is, I feel like you never see that one as much anymore. I still feel like. I remember it. Like I know, yeah. No, I don't say, it's a, it's a Dextre Mythore fan over the count. There you go.

And then there is in, like we said, the mid-60s, we have Nike well. Now, Nike well was interesting. And what's the first set at the part at the time when it was released? You know, Nike well is the sniffly, sneezey, you know, so you can rest medicine. Right. They change the combination of different things. It's the sleepy time formula. It's the sleepy time formula.

It's the sleepy time formula. In fact, why is it called Nike Well, you ask? No one knows. Well, I thought, Well, I'll want, I know what you're about to say. Because this is what it says on the VIX website, the origin of Nike Well's name is shrouded in legend. Many believe that the name was...

Legend? This is from the company's official website. Many believe the name was derived from nighttime tranquility because it delivers superior nighttime relief and provides the healing power of sleep. Well, I assume that night reference night because of day quill, night quill. But day quill came decades later.

So yeah, night quill will help you get your zes. I think what they're saying is we don't know why it's called night quill, but this seems like a good, good place in the city. The quill part to my thinking, and I mean, I don't know. This was just my guess. From a marketing perspective, quill, maybe it makes you think of tranquil or tranquility or maybe it makes you just think of tranquilizer. Yeah, maybe. Like, I want something to knock me out because I'm so tired of coughing is kind of the con. I mean, that's how we think of Nikewell, right? Like, it's the thing

that you take when you just need to be a sleep and done with this cold for a while. The thing about night cool that makes it like sort of a, it helps it make a splash. We had cough syrup. Yes. We had cold pills, cold medication. Night cool was the first one that said like,

let's do it all in this syrup. Right. And it's not just for coughs, it's for the entire constellation of symptoms. It also was the first to include a dosing cup, which was a big deal because it made dosing at home. Like, normally if you had a constellation of symptoms, you would have to go to your doctor and say, like, I have this and this and this. And here are the three different medicines that you would need for that

or try to make some of yourself, you know, figure it out at home. But this may like, you didn't have to do that math. You didn't have to figure out all the different doses. It was all of this one dosing cup that was that came with the, the bottle. That, you know, that makes sense too. When I think about, like, how often as a kid, when I got medicine, it was just measured in like a spoon. This is about a teaspoon. And I mean, it is a teaspoon, but it's sort of a, I mean, it's sort of, you know, it's not as exact, certainly as a measuring cup and emails. But the other thing about that, it's an alcohol. What? There was alcohol in there. Yes, yes, you got a Cedamidifin, Dexamethorophane, Doxilamine, Doxilamine.

Doxilamine, sucanate, sucanate, citric acid, alcohol, some thickeners, flavor, half your juice corn syrup, some sourness. Not a lot of alcohol, I don't think. No, I'm not sure about this. I think there used to be a little bit more. And of course, alcohol, extremely common ingredient in all medicines at this point.

Yeah, especially anything that was going to be a liquid was usually put in alcohol. Well, they say that the alcohol is to act as a solvent. Yeah. That is what they eat. That's what I'm saying. That's what they say. Yeah. And not just like. Yes, but I mean, that was always the connotation I had with Nyquil was like, that's the stuff you drink when you need to sleep.

So following the Vic story a little bit more, the business evolved into Richardson Vix eventually. And that company Richardson Vix was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1985. So there's not a Vix company anymore as we know it. It is more of a line of products. Yeah, it's more of a line of products. Now, does in your opinion, and I have some facts, but they're very, Vix Vaporub, does it work? Is the question. Um, I have looked into this briefly before because we've, we've talked around Vicks Vapourub.

We've never done this sort of history about it, but we've talked around it. And my impression is that there are some studies that indicate that like menthol and camphor and those ingredients can make you feel like you have the sensation that you're less congested can give you that sort of like symptomatic relief, but they're not necessarily altering the course of the illness in any way. So there's like some subjective improvement. That is my impression from from whatever. And that's basically what there was a study that Penn State did. That showed that it's more effective than placebo petroleum rub for helping cough and congestion and helping people sleep. But the study also showed that unlike the petroleum rub placebo,

Vixuevae per rub was associated with burning stations to the skin,, nose and eyes. So, and 5% of the people who were in the study had a rash as a result of using the product. Really? Yeah, and the studies first of all, there was a, according to this Wikipedia article, was a paid consultant for broad-term gamble. Yeah, I mean, I think it's that, when you inhale that scent,

you feel like you're breathing better. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is a, that you do get to the sensation of, of improve. It feels like. It feels like. Now, I don't think that translates to you are breathing better. That would be what I would argue, but like certainly suggest. Now, I'm surprised that that many people got a rash. Yeah.

In that study, that, that seems like a really large percentage considering that VIXVAPA rub is used. At least it used to be, I don't know if it's as common now. I feel like there was that moment where a lot of parents used these sorts of things for their kids before a lot more regulation came in. You know, like we used to, I mean, the days of DIMITAP and things like that, you know, when our parents would give us all these medicines that then the, you know, governing organizations came in and said, actually, don't, no, never mind. Don't give all this stuff to kids. It's not really helpful and it might, it probably won't harm them, but it might and it

doesn't help. To have a more complete list, to circle back on, uh, uh, vaporub itself because that is sort of the, the, the core of the line. We talk about ingredients. Camphor, eucalyptus oil, menthol, and then they have inactive ingredients, including cedar leaf oil, nutmeg oil, petroleum, thymol, and termotinal oil. This is a product vaporub specifically that has a, like, what you just described, that is a story that a lot of people

for generations have had. Vaporob is important throughout the planet, in different ways. It's in different cultural communities. It takes on different aspects. There was an article in the LA Times cultural communities, it takes on different aspects. There was an article in the LA Times about their furture as a vivo portal.

Like my pronunciation is probably poor, but it's very important to their community, right? It's in Germany, these products are for sale. They are not called VIX. They are, these products are for sale. They are not called VIX. Because VIX sounds a lot like VIX. And if you're wondering what that translates to, it would be like, if here we call these products VUX.

So in Germany, they're called WIC. And it just looks exactly the same. And all looks exactly the same. It just WIX. It's not VIX.'re called WIC. And it just looks exactly the same. And all looks exactly the same. It's just WICs. It's not WICs, it's WICs. Okay. And so that is what they're marketing, marketed under throughout Germany.

Did you find anywhere where they put it on their feet? I've heard that before. I've had people tell me that they put they put their rope on their feet to relieve like cold symptoms. And I found that very fascinating because that was not the tradition that I would say locally, I am more familiar with is rub it on the chest

or like I did, put it on a hanker chiff and inhale it. That's what I hear most frequently. It is not, it would obviously not help with the helping the cold symptoms on the feet. Some people use it for, again, none of these treatments are tested, but in the same way that Ben Gay would work, and they, you know, a topical analgesic,

is that the right thing to say? We got it. And then apparently there was some indication that it might help with fungus. So that was why people were applying it to the feet as well. Okay, I've heard that, you know what's so interesting is all this stuff gets muddled and I have had people tell me that during times of illness, they will go to get in bed, put a Vicksvapo rub on their feet and then put on some warm socks

over it to hold it in. And that that's how they'll help. I've heard that. And I, you know, it's always like, well, that's probably not gonna help, but it's not harmful, I suppose. I have to tell you my favorite, this is my favorite thing about Vex. And I've told you some, I know, captivating things about this brand already, but this is my favorite thing.

It's big in India. Okay. And it had a sort of slow uptake in India. It was brought over there in the mid-60s and the salesmen who brought it over would go to markets and like individually person by person, pitch that to them and explain to them how it worked. And it caught on there really big. In fact, one of the, in a book called India Unbound,

the author of that book describes going to someone's house where a woman was boiling vix in hot water and then breathing the vapors. Yes. And that is where the company got the idea for the vaporizer. For the vaporizers and stuff like that. We used to have one of those.

Exactly. So it was like, that's how big it was there. But in the mid-80s, it started to struggle. For two reasons. One is, the system is more complicated there than,, but basically the pharmacists were boycotting vicks because they wanted a bigger cut of the profits. Basically, they're like distributing and not creating them, right? And then also the government, because it was worried about, it's politically complicated,

but basically the government put in an order in the mid-60s that continued for decades that said that they were able to control the price of drugs because they were worried about Chinese interfering with drug prices. It's complicated. That part's complicated, but here's the important thing. They were struggling, right? The pharmacist or boardcutting bicks and also the government was controlling the prices of drugs to explain the pharmacist thing a little bit retailers and chemists who sell drugs many I'm reading your retailers and chemists who sell drugs, manufacturers by pharmacists dictate the availability of drugs on the market and consequently their price. So basically the people making the drugs or separate from people selling the drugs and they want to buy it, it's not important.

Here's the important thing. VIX was, their profits were going way down and between these two factors, they were not making money on VIX paper rub, which is an extremely popular product, they just couldn't make a headway. Okay. So, at that point, VIX of India applied to the government

because of a small exception in their role about price controls to encourage small practitioners and people who weren't into alipathic treatments, Iurvedic treatments were not part of the drug price control. So in India, VIX filed for VAPO rub to be considered an Irovedic treatment. And Irovedic treatment. They went through the different Irovedic texts and found parallels. I'm sure. Yeah, I can see where that would be. Irovedic treatments, which we've talked about before many times on the show. Basically, very old, old, ancient, like Indian treatments that have been passed down and are still practiced.

It's its own medical system. It's a different than allopathic medicine that we practice. But VIX went to the government said, oh, Vaporome, it's an Iirvade treatment. Look in the books. Did that work? went to the government said, oh, vapor room? It's an iron-vated treatment. Look in the books. Did that work? Did that work? It works at text, absolutely it worked.

So now it vicks to this day, Vicks vapor room is registered as an iron-vated product in India because they were able to like look at, there's no licenses, they don't have to pay as many texts as on it, the price control isn't a problem anymore. And according to this, Vicks, oh, and they could also sell it everywhere because it wasn't a drug anymore. So the promises couldn't control the price anywhere. And the outlets carrying VIX tripled

according to this article to 750,000 different ones. And it was massive there. India was established as the leading producer of Vex Vaporub among more than 130 countries. And it is now a hugely popular, Iuravatic treatment. That's wild. There's something very cynical about that. I can't say I love, but. I mean, that's brands though, Sid. That's brand, no, you're true, love but. I mean that's brands they're said.

That's brand. No, you're true. You're right. That's not brands. There's no medicine. There's no science. That's brands for you folks. And that is my story with VIX, a proud brand that has done some questionable things that

we'll talk about later dates. All brands. Yeah. Not all brands. not all brands. Not all brands. I mean, that's always a problem with the intersection of capitalism and medicine. I mean, there are two different goals.

One is to make people healthy and one is to make people money. What I think the thing, the takeaway for me about Vaporub is, and the thing that seems to resonate with people is when someone feels bad, The takeaway for me about vapor rub is, and the thing that seems to resonate with people is, when someone feels bad, it is a thing you can do that makes you feel like you're doing something. That's what it should say on the package.

Feel like you're doing something. There is so much of medicine that is that. It's hard though, because I am more from the opinion that the art of good medicine is doing as much nothing as you can. Don't tamper too much. But can I just say, I understand that impulse and I certainly associate the smell of Xvapourub

to this day with being cared for and soothed and loved and coddled, you know, because that's those were the times when it was part of my life. And so that's nice. And like, scent is a very powerful memory, like creator and stimulator and all that. So I mean, I think that those sort of things, maybe not medicinally are important, but culturally socially have some relevance and some importance that you can put on them. You always wish they could, I mean, maybe it's more appropriate to not classify it.

It's like a drug, so to speak. The only thing I would say though, is when you name the ingredients, you name several different oils, like eucalyptus and things. And I think we've mentioned this on the show before. Inhaling some oils can be triggering for things like asthma attacks. So specifically, I would be very careful,

and this would be true, not just for VIXVAPO, but anything that you're gonna like vaporize and inhale, whether it be inner vaporizer machine, or like you said, like boiling something to inhale the vapors. That's always something to be careful with if you have a history of any sort of breathing problems, asthma or COPD, or even in rare cases, I think I've read about epilepsy and

stuff. I would just be careful with inhaling strong oils from any source. There was a, it's funny you said that there was actually an article from Science Daily from 2009. I found a lot of research in this that said that it was a study I wait for us that suggested that VIXVAPEROB might create respiratory distress in infants and small children because it stimulated mucus production and airway inflammation, which can have effects

on the breathing of an infant and a retotler. Yeah, there is, we talked about this in essential oils. There is a reason why like just smelling something might not necessarily be dangerous, but actually taking the next step of burning it in some way, you know what I mean, not burning it, but vaporizing it, turning it into vapor, right? You know, that step and then inhaling it in larger volumes can be dangerous to some people. And so I would approach that with great caution. I don't think if you like sniff some Vicks vapor rub,

that's necessarily dangerous, but inhaling large quantities of it or vaporizing it. Certainly. What they suggested here in this study is first of all, just like following the label instructions because it says in the label, you shouldn't use it for people under the age of two. I think there's a specific baby rub for that purpose.

Yeah, probably. I think they sell. And then also to not put it directly under the nose, it's not supposed to go like on the lip. It's supposed to go on the chest and you inhale the wee bit from there. So you shouldn't put it on a handkerchief and stick it up under your nose.

Probably you should not do that. I would say generally speaking, if you are concerned about any sort of breathing problems or in young children, just don't use this. Yeah. I mean, it's just, you want to abandon a brand that's been for you for, with you for generations and go for a band in the brand, what does it say about care? It's, well, it's hard.

It's, like I said, it's so many of these things. And this is true, by the way, it can be frustrating if you're a parent, especially if like you were a parent in more recent gen, like your kids are older. And like now you're watching them have kids. This is a big shift. There are tons of medicines for kids over the counter type stuff that we used to give all the time that we got just and I'm sure as children that are probably not dangerous, but also don't help.

And we'll be dangerous for just a few. And so the shift has been, just don't do it. It's not gonna help. It probably won't hurt, but it might hurt somebody, so why? What's the point? And maybe Vicks, Vapo, Rob goes in that category. Thank you so much for listening to our program.

We very much appreciate it. Thanks to taxpayers for using their song Medicines as the intro and outro of our program. Thanks to you for listening to me and patient with me. I was probably different from our normal thing. It's pretty hard to do city's job as I found out. I thought you did a great job. Thanks, honey. I appreciate that.

I was very proud of you. That's gonna do it for us. Be sure to join us again next time. Until then, my name is just McRoy. I'm Cindy McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!