Vicks
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Vicks is a line of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, Vicks brand cough drops, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments. For much of its history, Vicks was a family-owned company based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and was eventually sold to Procter & Gamble in 1985.
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[edit] VapoRub
The brand is most widely known for the signature "VapoRub" ointment, a mentholated topical cream intended to assist with minor medical conditions that temporarily impair breathing, including the common cold. It is applied to the chest, often immediately before sleeping.
[edit] History
In 1890 pharmacist Lunsford Richardson took over the retail drug business of his brother-in-law Dr. Joshua Vick, of Selma, Greensboro, North Carolina.[1] After Dr Joshua Vick saw an ad for Vick's Seeds, Lunsford Richardson began marketing Vick’s Family Remedies.[1] The basic ingredients of the range included Castor oil, linament, 'dead shot' vermifuge.[1] The most popular remedy was Croup and Pneumonia Salve, which was first compounded in 1891, in Greensboro. It was introduced in 1905 with the name Vick's Magic Croup Salve and rebranded as VapoRub in 1912 at the instigation of Smith Richardson, Lunsford's oldest son[1] ; Smith had gained valuable sales and marketing experience while working for a period in New York and Massachusetts after attending college. Smith Richardson assumed the presidency of the company in 1919 upon his father's death.
The flu epidemic of 1918 increased sales of VapoRub from $900,000 to $2.9 million in just one year. In 1948, Edward Mabry became president (the first outside the Richardson family) of Vicks, then known as the Vicks Chemical Company. In 1985, it was sold to Procter & Gamble and Procter & Gamble has since marketed the product as "The only thing more powerful than a mother's touch." VapoRub is currently manufactured and packaged in Mexico and India.
The company archives (including related personal records of the Richardson family) from at least about 1920 or so, up to the 1985 sale to Procter & Gamble, are housed at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.[2]
[edit] Safe use of VapoRub
VapoRub can be applied to the chest or throat (for congestion relief) or to sore muscles (to increase circulation). However, because it contains camphor—a substance that can be toxic if swallowed or absorbed into the body—VapoRub should not be applied in or near the nostrils (see manufacturer's warnings).
Research published by Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in the January 2009 issue of Chest, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, suggests that Vicks VapoRub compound used to relieve symptoms of cough and congestion, may instead create respiratory distress in infants and small children. The study reports that the product may stimulate mucus production and airway inflammation, which can have severe effects on the breathing of infants and young children because of the small size of their airways. (see [1]).
[edit] Ingredients
Active Ingredients:
- Camphor 4.8% (Cough suppressant and topical analgesic)
- Eucalyptol 1.2% (Cough suppressant)
- Menthol 2.6% (Cough suppressant and topical analgesic)
Inactive Ingredients
- Cedarleaf oil
- Nutmeg oil
- special Petrolatum
- Turpentine oil
[edit] See also
- Aromatherapy
- Essential oil
- Mentholatum
- Vicks Sinex
- Levomethamphetamine (Vicks Inhaler)